My college roomie CPK (boy that makes me feel old saying "college roommate") stopped by in Spain on his way to Rome. Lucky me! We got to see the Palacio Royal and Plaza Mayor and ate a crap ton of food, specifically jamón ibérico. AND CPK's Swedish friend Andreas who he met while studying abroad in Singapore got to come too! ANDDD I got to meet up with a girl from the Penn State Crew team Hannah who went to the same high school as me in el Parque del Buen Retiro because she's studying abroad there for a semester! What a weekend full of reunions.
Activities included walking in the rain, exploring the royal palace, getting yelled at for taking pictures in the royal palace, walking some more in the rain, eating lots and lots of food, seeing a rainbow, going to a super yummy bakery, seeing an art exhibit of names written in water that we didn't understand, not making it into the Prado Museum twice, eating more food instead, attempting to see Flamenco dancing only to find out the tablaos were either closed or too expensive, going to get beers instead at a bar that ended up being a Flamenco music hang out place, and walking a little bit more in the rain. Here are some of my pics from the weekend:
0 Comments
So this girl, Maria, from an exercise class I joined a few weeks ago has been asking me to hang out with her and our schedules just hadn't been matching up. This week we finally met up at a café down the street, and turns out she is super sweet.
I had kind of been putting off our meeting because Jill didn't want to go and it's a lot of pressure to meet up with someone alone in your second language and be able to hold a conversation by yourself. And let me tell you, her accent is as Casaricheño as it gets! But we really hit if off, so she invited me out for tapas at the cuartelillos - little bars that set up shop 40 days before Semana Santa (aka Holy Week leading up to Easter) to help fund the church and more specifically the procesiones. But this post is not about Semana Santa; it's about speaking my second language: Let met tell you, when I went to the café with Maria, my Spanish was ON POINT! I felt like I was really getting everything she was saying and not saying "cómo" or "perdón" after she asked me a question to give myself more time to think. There was some serious flow. But then I went out for tapas with Maria, her friend Vicky, and Vicky's daughter Andrea. (Andrea is 11, so that was interesting going bar hopping with an 11 year old, but that's not what we are here to talk about.) Let's just say my Spanish was less on point. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't like the café outing. The thing about speaking in a second language is that there are good days and there are bad days, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to change that. You can make a bad days less bad and less frequent with practice and put yourself in situations that will set you up for success. But sometimes your brain and/or mouth just aren't working or aren't working together. At the café, I set myself up really well. We met at 5pm, so I was not too tired, I drank hot chocolate, not alcohol, and we sat outside where it wasn't noisy. For the cuartelillos, we left to go out at 9pm, I had not taken a siesta, it was noisy, and I drank beer. I think I did pretty well considering the setup, but Vicky would give me this squinty eyed look like she was focusing really hard to understand my accent. Usually a beer can actually improve pronunciation, but apparently that was not the case today. My pronunciation would be ok, and then out would pop a really, terribly thick guiri accent for a word or two. Oh well. I am going to the movies with them tomorrow, so here's to hoping for a good Spanish day for me tomorrow! Went on a field trip to the Casariche industrial district to tour the factories. I saw a picture of one of the guys from Muay Thai in one of the factories...turns out he is one of the owners. Small world.
The whole world thought it was my birthday today. I walked into my first class of the day and all the kids were screaming at me, "Congratulations!!!!!" At first I was really confused about what they were congratulating me on. Then one kid wished me a happy birthday. When it's your birthday, people tell you felicidades, directly translating to congrats in English - which I find hilarious, by the way. It wasn't just the kids either. I had a teacher come up to me and wish me felicidades and start to go in for the double kiss. Along with felicidades, you also get hammered with double kisses. Seriously. When it's been other teachers' birthdays, they've had to go around double kissing 20+ people. I know some foreigners despise the double kiss greeting, but I don't mind it. I think I might mind it on my actual birthday though.
While I'm not sure how this rumor started, I did realize that today is the 19th. It's just the 19th of the wrong month. Maybe I'll bring in some cookies tomorrow to keep the joke going. Or ever better, maybe I can milk a two month long birthday celebration. I had a fun outing with my colleague and friend Jesús to hike the Arabian Stairs in the Huma Mountains. It was AWESOME! I knew Jesús was a mountain man before, but this hiking trip only further reaffirmed my thoughts. He doesn't just climb mountains...he RUNS up them. I could hardly keep up! But lucky for me that meant he stopped to take lots of photos as he waited for me to catch up. Hiking with Jesús was certainly a humbling experience. And I would definitely do it again! (At the very least to keep my ego in check.) When we got to the top, we wrote our names and a note in the hiker's notebook. The hike was difficult but enjoyable, and it was worth it to end standing among the clouds. Super cool experience, and I'll let the rest of the photos speak for themselves... My photos: Jesús' (much higher quality) photos in reverse order:
My friend and colleague Alicia is a fellow environmentalist and works with a group of students after school in an environmental club type thingy. She is working with the students to learn about the community's environmental efforts and figure out ways to improve and expand on them. Sooooo we visited the landfill/recycling center in Herrera which is where the trash and recycling goes after being picked up from Casariche (and a bunch of other nearby towns). My environmental engineering professors from Penn State would be so proud. The recycling center actually was pretty similar to the one I visited in State College with my CE 476 class (should out to Dr. Brennan). Although, State College does not bury it's trash on site like this place in Herrera does. The center said they are looking into getting an incinerator to burn the trash before burying it.
Weird story: I learned in my class that these facilities are called MRFs (Materials Recovery Facilities - please, don't ask me what they're called in Spanish). This MRF separates recyclables that were not properly placed in recycling containers from the trash manually. That means there are workers who pick out things from the trash that can be recycled. (NOTE: This does not mean you can throw away whatever into the trash because it will be picked out. This material is not as valuable as recyclables that are properly disposed of.) Anywho...one of the custodians at the school I work at apparently has a son/daughter who works at the MRF separating recyclables. This custodian was purposely throwing away recyclables into the trash bins to ensure that her son/daughter had work. The always pleasant Emily Pringle came to visit me in Spain! She's living in England, so she was able to come down for just a short weekend visit. We met up in Granada to explore the city and go skiing in Sierra Nevada. It was definitely nice to see a familiar face while abroad. Thanks for coming, Pringle! DAY 1 Walking around Granada before Pringle arrived. DAY 2 Skiing, lunch break, skiing, churros, sleep. DAY 3 Exploring La Alambra, a famous palace and fortress in Granada.
My life in Spain has pretty much been all consumed by every form of exercise I can get my hands on. I've really taken full advantage of having access to a bike. I'm going to have to figure out a way to make it up to Alejandro for being so nice to me and letting me use his bike. Other than my usual ride to Puente Genil, I've gone to the Herrera Train Station and Estepa. And of course I've been continuing with Muay Thai classes. Herrera - 23 Jan 2018 I felt like I got a much needed escape from dirt-only landscapes. I finally had some green to look at. Muay Thai - 23 Jan 2018 Estepa - 25 Jan 2018 This ride was pretty interesting because it took me over an hour to get there but only about 40 minutes to ride home to Casariche. There is a very, very long uphill going to Estepa, but I definitely enjoyed the ride coming back.
One weekend every year, Casariche and Badolatosa, the neighboring rival town (think Unionville vs. Kennett) have a soccer match weekend. The primary school kids play the primary school kids, the adults play the adults, you get the idea. I went to one of the bigger matches played between the late high school/early college agers with Alejandro. As you could've guessed all of my students were there. Some of the girls from 4o de ESO (10th grade) insisted on a photo. Casariche came out victorious. Definitely a fun time! I've wanted a bike pretty much since I've arrived in Casariche. I think Jill was just about at her wits' end hearing me say how much I wanted one. So I finally said, "screw it." I ran home after work on Monday, ate lunch as fast as I could, and started walking to Puente Genil. Last time I walked to PG with Jill, it took about 3 hours. This time it took me about 2.5. I was on a mission. I wanted a bike. When I arrived in the "big city" as Jill and I like to call it, I went straight for Decathalon. I figured a sporting goods store was a good place to start. Unfortunately, all of the bikes were a little out of my price range and most of them were road bikes which weren't going to work well for the dirt road I planned on taking from Casariche to PG regularly. So I headed to Carrefour. It's a grocery store, but I knew they had bikes. When I arrived, not only did they have bikes, but they had a foldable bike! I was so excited. I bought the works: a wrench, allen keys, a bike lock, a helmet, a tire pump, and of course the bike. After making my way through the checkout line, I proceeded to the customer service desk for scissors. I needed to assemble bits and pieces of this bike immediately because it was my ride home, and I was racing against the sunset.
I literally sat on the floor of the Carrefour snipping tags and tightening bolts and putting on pedals. I even went back into the Carrefour to use the tools from the tool aisle to help me assemble the bike. One dad who was there with his kids even tried to help me for a hot second. But I could not get the dumb handles to point the correct direction. They were parallel to the front wheel instead of perpendicular. Then who did I run into than the director from my school, Ángel. He asked me what was up, and I told him. Reluctantly at first, but later thankfully. He helped me talk to the customer service people. He must've waited there with me for an hour while the Carrefour people tried fixing the handles. They became loose but then wouldn't tighten. Ángel ran back into the store to pick up what he had initially had gone to Carrefour to get. Concerned about me getting home safely in the dark, he told me I should return the bike and he would drive me home even though he doesn't live in Casariche. I felt smart for saving all of the tags that I cut off the bike (like I actually learned something from previous mistakes I've made). I felt juvenile for asking for his help with the customer service people. (I could've talked to them myself, but when you're stressed and speaking in your second language, it's nice to have a helping hand. Even though I speak in Spanish with Ángel, it was a greatly appreciate familiar face and good to feel like someone had my back.) And last, but certainly not least, I felt grateful that my coworkers (in this case my boss) are so incredibly generous and kind and willing to drop everything they're doing to help this struggling foreigner try to live in Spain. The joke now is the Ángel is my angel. I asked him if he Mondays were his typical Carrefour grocery shopping night. He said this was the first time he had been to Carrefour this entire school year. Man, did I luck out! The following day, I told some coworkers what happened. Alejandro decided to lend me his bike until further notice. Did I mention how lucky I am?? In more ways than one. |
AuthorI'm Emma. I love food more than anyone will ever understand - specifically cheese, chocolate, bread and pretty much every fat & carb combo you can think of - apple cider donuts, ice cream, the list goes on. Fats and carbs just go so well together. Don't you think? Why is it when I'm tasked to describe myself, I always talk about food? I guess if you want to learn more about me, you'll have to read my posts about my year as a teacher in Spain. Archives
May 2018
Categories |