weekend tranquilo

feliz dia de accion de gracias to everyone! a roundabout way to say happy thanksgiving!! I worked thanksgiving day, but the next day we made a big thanksgiving feast. i was in charge of green beans and sweet potatoes...for those that know me, i dont cook, so i was happy with the results. anyway, we did it right. there was plenty of food. we also had 2 british in our midst so we educated them on the feast. and they liked it!
another good thing, all the christmas lights came on this weekend! it loooks amaazing! everyone was out last night looking at them, and the christmas markets in plaza mayor opened. they sell very weird things...wigs, halos, masks, general junk. supposedly germany has amazing christmas markets, and i will conveniently be there right before christmas!
this city gets really excited about the holidays; last night had a really great energy--then again, i always like the vibes here. everyone is relaxed--tranquilo if you will--and the spanish are so annoying and bizarre in such an endearing way that you just have to love them. for example, even a big city like madrid partakes in the siesta hour (or hours!) for the most part. its frustrating, because you cant get anything done between the hours of 2-5 (or 14-17). i have a nice break at that time on tuesdays and thursdays that ive generally used for a quick siesta on a park bench. now that its getting properly cold in madrid, im going to find something else to do. find a cafe to hang out in. actually i do like coffee here.
shaz's friend is visiting this weekend so we have been around feasting on spanish food...churros con chocolate and good queso manchego.
today theres a big football game (soccer!) real madrid vs. barcelona. we're going to watch it later along with the rest of spain. fingers crossed for real madrid...

last day of the month tomorrrow...meaning i get paid this week! other than that, just a typical busy week of teachign and METRO-ing...bah humbug.


all for now...

spanish children

Another beautiful weekend in Madrid! The city keeps putting up more christmas decorations...there is a big tree in Sol now and another one thats red on Paseo del Prado. I met someone the other day who has a temporary job prepping the city for the season. They really are going all out! hard to believe its the end of november. the weather has been amazing, the leaves are just now dropping in the park (it looks so beautiful!..i'm still trying to spend as much time there as possible, which seems like everybody else in the citys idea as well) and the time has been flying! next weekend we are here in Madrid, then the next 3 i'll be away: Lisbon, Milan, Heidlburg (Germany), and then Christmas, and then the sibs...and we are going to Barcelona! So quite busy.
Anyway...before i get too far ahead of myself...
the week was good, the weekend has been wonderful and relaxing. My spanish classes are going well, its good to revisit the forms of the different tenses and things. im hoping between the classes for formal, technical learning, and my students for colloquial, street language, i can master this. we'll see...
ricardo speaks great english, but his wife and kids dont, so i have them to practice on. not that the kids sit still long enough for me to talk to them...theyre usually terrorizing me, one another, or their poor mother...
which brings me to my main focus for this post: last night a little birthday party was planned for Ricardo. (he turns 40 tomorrow!) his wife had been cooking and cleaning all weekend. shaz and i had gone out to do some shopping and came back for the party yesterday to find that the younger boy had swallowed a coin and they had to take him to the hospital! of coures, the party must go on, so Maru stayed at the hospital with the boy, while we all enjoyed all the food she had prepared. Ricardo's friends were mostly computer programmers like himself and spoke very good english, so it wasnt a very good opportunity to practice my language skills. the older boy who hadnt swallowed a coin took advantage of his brothers absence to be star of the show and hide under various tables, dress up in various costumes, and run around witha sword stabbing people. these children have no discipline...they stay up late (you will see people leiusurly pushing a stroller around the block at midnight !) im pretty sure theyre all like this, not just the ones in this house.
anyway, after the party, ricardo left immediately to trade with his wife at the hospital. they came back today around noon. fun fun!
a busy week ahead, ive picked up some exam proctoring hours, so will be keeping busy. all for now, ciao!

Cordoba!

Cordoba was tiny and beautiful. The weather was absolutely amazing and Cordoba was a typical Spanish town with lots of green and little parks. The Mesquita, which was built when Spain was under Arab rule centuries ago lived up to my expectations. It is now a Cathedral--the Spanish built a Cathedral right in the middle of the mesquita when Fernando and Isabel reconquered Spain, so it is very interesting--an intense mix of arabic and catholic architectures. i thought it looked like candyland--the columns of red and white stripes were endless.
we also saw a flamenco show--andalucia (the southern region of spain) is the best, most traditional, place to do this. the dancers were beautiful.

overall, a wonderful weekend!

ciao.

Christmas?

Madrid is going to be lovely at Christmas time! they've already started stringing lights all over the place, and they're not your average lights, most of them ahve some short of shape and hang in clusters over the streets. they havent started lighting them yet, but each night i notice more are hung up. i wonder when they will start lighting them? they dont have thanksgiving as a guide.

things are usual around here, and the weekend uneventful. we spent a little time at the Prado museum. the museum is huge! we made it through most of their goya exhibit and their temporary exhibit of a recently uncovered Spanish painter, mainz, i believe, before becoming exhausted. we also did a little shopping because we officially got paid for the very first time! very exciting after 2 months. haha.

this weekend, we are headed to cordoba, a place i've never been! its in the south of spain, very lovely and traditional, most famous for the mesquita, which is left over from Muslim rule, although it was later converted to a cathedral, but the origianl architecture remains. it sits right on the guadalquier river. not sure i spelled that at all right.
its getting dark so early now, before 6. very depressing, and mkaing me tired. i cant wait til december 21 when it starts turning around again.
time for lesson planning and bed!

ciao

tengo prisa!

busy week. loving the new place, i've been running in the park and cutting through it on my way to and from places as much as possible. it really is the best place in the world, so its nice to have it so close. i started my spanish classes on monday, and ive got another tonight. its hard to focus when they are so late at night, but its the only time i have time to go! i finished my classes for the day, and the parents of my last lesson dropped me off at home, which was nice of them. they live on the outskirts of madrid, so when we were driving in the car i saw a lot of places i had never seen before (i travel so much underground--i dont actually know whats around!) theres a huge cemetary, one of the biggest ive seen right near the highway. they were speaking to me in spanish and i couldnt keep up at all. certain days i can talk to anyone about anything, then other days i dont understand the simplest things. its like i switch on and off. either way, i am absorbing a lot. another friend of mine moved this weekend so last night we all got together at her new house and made some spanish food --tortilla espanola with lots of veggies! thursday night we are having a mexican night!
well, thats about all i have time for now! its basically the weekend after tomorrow, and a 4 day one at that (they have another holiday on monday...they are always having holidays...usually i would think this is great, but when you get paid by the hour...the holidays every other week get a little old!) but regardless, i will enjoy my long weekend and the corresponding short week to follow.

a halloween picture: the shaz band (because it rhymes with "jazz" and my friends name is shaz! brilliant, i know...)

Retiro Home, Halloween, 2 month mark

2 months that I've been back in Madrid. Crazy! Already I'm nostalgic for Spain in the fall. It's been so beautiful, when will I be here for it again? the past 2 months have been challenging and amazing. i've learned so much, met so many wonderful people, and tried a lot of new things, really pushing myself. it's completely different than studying abroad because so much is up to me and so much is on my own. I am so grateful for the friends i have met, we are all so different but we have madrid and adventure in common and because of this have become a solid family. i am daily writing emails in spanish, having conversations in spanish, and teaching classes about English. I love the opportunity to get to know so many Spanish people of all ages and from all around the city. i'm so happy that i am here and feel amazed when i actually stop for a minute and think about it. i came back to madrid, i made this happen. this is exactly what i wanted since i studied abroad. its a really incredible feeling.
last week i picked up some hours proctoring an English exam at a huge company where all the money for Spain is made. it was very high security and very fancy. in order to get a job there, applicants must pass a high-level English exam. My job was to ask the questions for the oral part of the exam in one-on-one interviews and then evaluate the students level. i felt so bad when i had to fail people, knowing that a job was on the line.
today i moved into my new home near the park. here is the address for those who which to mail or visit me: C/ Valenzuela 10, 2D Madrid Spain 28014 .

its a beautiful home, and my friend shaz is here with me. there are 2 small children who are actually very loud, so we will just have to see how it goes. ricardo, the man renting us the rooms, speaks some English and is very nice. He is a surfer. his wife, maru, is from Peru.

besides that, it was halloween weekend, so we went to a party with our teaching academy. I'll post pictures, we looked great!

better get to lesson planning, more later!