Yesterday was my first trip out of Almería since arriving! Martín, Tomás, Endika, Juanmi, Fran, Cheti, and I went to the feria in Albox, a small town about 10 minutes from where Martín is from. I think I may have briefly explained this in a previous post, but a feria is basically a town holiday. Every town has a saint and every saint has a day, so when a town’s saint’s day rolls around, the whole town celebrates! It’s more or less like a carnival with tents, vendors, rides, games, etc. We got to Martín’s house in Arboleas around 1ish. He cooked us some food and then we left for the feria. Friday was the first day of the feria and it was really early, so there was pretty much NO ONE there haha. Thus, we just hung out on the street outside and drank by the car. Sergio, or as he is called within the group, Loco (crazy), met up with us there. He lived in the piso with Martín and Tomás last year.

 

Reppin' the US of A

We befriended a street vendor named Malik (pictured below) and he hung out with us for like AT LEAST 30 or 45 minutes. We all bought hats from him and some people bought glasses. He had a pair with stars and stripes (also pictured below) and I couldn’t say no to repping America, so I bought them! When he first came over to us, the hats were 5 euros each. By the time we were done haggling with him, he gave us 3 hats for 5 euros hahahah. Way to go Tomás and Juanmi! Nevertheless, he did make like 20 euros off of us before he left so I'd say he did pretty well. Here are a few pictures from the beginning of the Feria...

 Cheti (left), Malik (center), and Tomás (right)

Back row (l to r): Me, Endika, Fran, Martín, Cheti, Loco. Front row: Juanmi and Tomás

Me, Fran, Juanmi, and Loco

 Juanmi decided to try on Malik's pink, rhinestone studded reading glasses haha

Around 8, we decided maybe we should actually enter the feria at some point haha. So, we went into one of the tents, listened to some music, danced (I use this term loosely as we all know I can't dance to save my life), etc. Tomás, Juanmi, Endika, and I also went on one of the rides. It was like the old rocketship ride at Astroworld except it never went fully upside down. It was more fun than the one at Astroworld though because instead of sitting, you stand in a little cage at the back or front of the ship with no seatbelt! 

Shortly after this, we left and went back to Martín's house to eat dinner. He lives in a really cool house with a bar that his family owns below. The bar isn't up and running anymore, but it was a really cool place to hang out. There's an oven built into the wall, so Martín's parents cooked us some delicious barbeque! Also, there was a foosball table and a FULL-SIZED ping pong table! I got to prove to the guys that I actually can play ping pong and that the size of our table at home is the only reason I look like I'm so bad! I beat Tomás many a time and it was glorious! (Side note: I beat Tomás on our little table for the first time the other day! yayy!)

After we ate, Martín's brother, Antonio, got out his guitar and Loco sang and played a bunch of songs for us. He has a really good voice and is good on the guitar--self taught! I was very impressed. Plus Spanish guitar is awesome.

Around 1am, after everyone had showered and gotten ready, we went back to the feria. We ended up just sitting out on the street, drinking, and listening to Loco play the guitar and sing. Part way through the night, a gitano or gypsy joined the circle and started singing with Loco hahaha. We never actually went back into the feria that night, and around 6:30, we went back to Martín's. Instead of going to sleep, like we should have, we stayed downstairs in the bar and continued to drink. Poor decision to say the least haha. Juanmi decided he wanted to practice his bartending skills and was twirling bottles and throwing cups in the air. The night ended abruptly for me following a mixed shot of vodka and gin courtesy of bartender Juanmi. I barely stomached it and then flopped down on the couch and slept.

3 of the roomies posing with the hideous painting whose twin we have in the piso

 Behind the bar. Being back there really enhanced Juanmi's ability to mix drinks...NOT

Creations of Camarero (bartender) Juanmi...beer with lemons?

C

 I'm glad they only took a picture with me. Thy weren't so kind to Juanmi. He woke up with black lines on his face hahaha

The next morning, I woke up to a magnificent assortment of food on the table. Martín's mom had prepared, ensalada ruso (basically a version of potato salad with tuna and veggies added), tortilla de patata (like a potato and egg omelette), potatoes, and roasted chicken. DELISH. After eating and showering, Juanmi, Tomás, Endika, Cheti, and I headed back to Almería and Martín, Fran, and Loco decided to stay in Arboleas for another night at the feria! They are champs. Great first trip out of Almería. Martín's parents are so awesome for hosting us, making us food, etc. As they say here, his family is muy buena gente (very good people)!

Other random happenings...

Wednesday, I taught the 4 year olds some of the high five games that I play with Zeke.

“Gimme 5. Up high. Down low. TOO SLOW!”

And…

“Gimme 5. Up high. Down low. In space…IN YOUR FACE!”

They thought it was the funniest thing ever and I literally had a mob of kids encircling me, jumping up and down and yelling, “Yo! Yo! Yo!” (Me! Me! Me!) They are suchhh a cute class! One of my favorite kids, Ismael, is in this class. For a 4-year-old, he's impressively not shy about attempting to speak English. He's always the first one to speak up when I tell them to repeat something. When I had them tell me their names, he raised his hand to say (roughly) "My...name...is...Ismael," at least 7 or 8 times! Don't worry though Zeke, you're still my favorite 4-year-old, hands down!

After another week of work, I’ve started noticing something funny. Every morning when I walk down Avenida Mediterranea to get picked up, it’s nearly the exact same. I see the same lady walking her dog, the same cute guy on the bridge, the same group of 3 people wearing their matching white jackets and going for a morning walk, and even the same nearly empty bus passing me with only a mom and her son on board. Same people, passing in the same place at the same time, every day. I feel like I’m in Groundhog Day or something haha.

Since I don't work on Fridays and we went to Albox, I missed the school-wide Halloween party :( I wish it had been on Thursday so that I could've seen all my precious little ones in their costumes! All week, they've been preparing Halloween posters, building mini haunted houses, coloring signs, and learning the trick-or-treating rhyme that they would use on Friday when they go trick or treating around town. Yolanda taught them this one...

Trick or treat! 

Trick or treat!

Give me something good to eat.

Halloween, Halloween!

Ghosts and witches can be seen.

I wanted to teach them the better version...

Trick or treat! 

Smell my feet!

Give me something good to eat.

If you don't, I don't care.
I'll pull down your underwear!


...but I didn't think that would be appropriate haha.

Random side note: I just realized the other day that the stop signs here say “STOP” instead of “PARE.” I asked Yolanda about it this morning and she said that some people say it stands for “Siempre Tienes Obligación de Parar,” but that’s not really why. Apparently they’ve just always said STOP. Weird.

Jose's in town this weekend, and hopefully we're going to hang out tomorrow. I'm going to his house to hang out with his sister & co for Halloween, so hopefully he'll be there for at least some of the time I am. I'll update again after Halloween to let y'all know how the holiday here compares to the holiday there.

Also, here's the link to my PHOTO ALBUM for all who aren't on facebook...ENJOY!

I’ve resolved to update my blog more often because when I wait so long between entries, they get really long and they take a long time to write. So, I’m going to try to update at least every other day from now on...the key word being TRY.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I’ve finally figured out the easiest way to send email updates when I update my blog. You can disregard all the other crap I’ve sent you…sorry for that confusion by the way! All you have to do, is type your email address in the little box on the righthand side of the blog, click subscribe, then enter the security code, click submit again, and you will receive a confirmation email. Open the email (it’ll be in English this time, I swear!) and click the link, and you will then be signed up for email updates! YAY!

Now, some about school. This is how I start my classes everyday…

Me: Hello!

Class: Hello! How are you?

Me: I am fine, thanks. How are you?

Class: I am fine, thanks.

This dialogue is something Yolanda has taught all of her classes and it is ALWAYS the same. If it changes at all, even one tiny word, like I say “good” instead of “fine,” it blows their minds and they have no idea what to say hahaha. That should give you an idea of the level of English I’m working with here. It’s kind of frustrating because I was hoping that some of the older kids at least would be more advanced, and I’d get to work some grammar with them. I don’t really have high hopes for them getting much more advanced as I don’t really get to spend enough time with the older classes to be able to teach all the stuff I wish I could.

FUN FACT 1: Today, one of the teachers asked me to start English classes for her kids (2 kids, one is 11 and the other I think is 9?)! She said she wants the older kid to have at least 2 hours a week with me and the younger, at least 1. And she’s gonna pay me 10€/hour to do it! Last year, her oldest kid took English classes with Olga, the girl who was the auxiliar de conversación in Rioja last year, so she’s hoping I can replace Olga. Since I’m going to start English classes with Lourdes and her mom anyway, I figure this would be a good opportunity to make a little extra spending money, if nothing else. I’m hoping with one-on-one lessons, we can progress much faster than in a class and hopefully I’ll be able to teach some more advanced stuff.

FUN FACT 2:  I’ve found another favorite class! Math with 2º ESO (8^th grade equivalent)! Today, Alberto let me teach the order of operations in his class…

Parentheses

Exponents

Multiply

Divide

Add

Subtract!

Thanks Mrs. Langston haha! But anyway, this class is really good! I’m not sure if the class is generally this well behaved or if it’s only because Alberto is the principal, but either way, very enjoyable AND I get to teach math! Today I was reminded of the fact that there’s a difference between knowing how to DO something and knowing how to TEACH something.

 EXCITING NEWS! I got in touch with the American who plays for Unicaja Almería, the men’s pro volleyball team! I sent him a message telling him that I was looking for a team and/or people to play with and he sent me back all kinds of good stuff. Gave me information about a possible club team I could play on--although he did say, to quote him, that “they don't have a women's team in any of the higher divisions so "competitive" is probably a loosely used term for this team”…bummer. Also, he told me that if I wanted to come to some of the games, he could try to get me tickets. And most exciting, he said that he and his wife don’t really have much to do here and would love to hang out sometime! Soooo, hopefully, sometime here in the next week or so, I’ll get to meet up with them! YAY for potentially having a pro volleyball player for a friend! hahahah

FUN FACT 3: The silly band craze has finally hit Spain. YAYYY for getting to experience it twice hahaha

And finally, for the FUNNY STORY of the week! This past Saturday, some friends were in our building for botellón. I was out with Lourdes and her friends for the night, so I missed the whole incident, but they told me about it the next day. I'm not sure if this happened on their way up to our piso or when they were leaving, but 3 friends, Juanmi (short for Juan Miguel), Fran, and Manolo, got stuck in our elevator for 90 MINUTES! bahahahhahahhahah

Manolo (left), Fran (center), and Juanmi (right) looking very distraught about being trapped in our tiny elevator for an hour and a half hahahahah

And to clarify, elevators here are NOT like elevators in the US...they're tiiiiiiiiiiny. You can fit a maximum of four people in each elevator...5 if you don't mind being really uncomfortable and being smashed up against the other 4 people. It makes me uncomfortable to be in the elevator with 1 other person that I don't know, so imagine being in this tiny space for an hour and half with three people! Tomás has theorized that they were probably jumping in the elevator (definitely sounds like something they would do) and since our building is pretty old, it made the elevator get stuck! Needless to say, I have been avoiding that elevator like the plague ever since Saturday.

Adios! And enjoy your automatic email updates with my next post!

This post is dedicated to the fact that WE FINALLY HAVE INTERNET!!!!!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYY! 

The man finally came to install it Monday afternoon…took him about 30 minutes and he was done! Not sure why that couldn’t have happened like 2 weeks ago, but oh well! Since Monday was the first day we had it, no one really even talked to each other. We pretty much just all sat around on our computers, absolutely addicted haha. Tomás had been in Zaragoza all weekend and he came back to find internet…"Madremía! Madremía! Madremía! Tenemos internet!" (Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! We have internet!) Rooms, you’ll be happy to know that, just like us, Tomás and I were messaging back and forth from our respective rooms because we were too lazy to get up and actually talk to each other hahaha. 

So, as promised, I’ll finally be writing some about my roommates! Anddd at the end of the post, I’ll finally post some pictures of Almería that I took over the past couple of days.

ROOMMATE PROFILE #1

NAME: Martín Bonillo García (left)

AGE: 23

HOMETOWN: Arboleas, Almería

STUDYING: Engineering

LIKES: Drinking, going to the gym, watching Dexter and Prison Break, Real Madrid, ping pong, pissing Tomás off so that he can beat him at ping pong, English day at the piso  

DISLIKES: FC Barcelona, losing to Tomás at ping pong, not getting enough sleep  

Martín is the person Jose put me in contact with about living in the piso. I started talking to him over the summer and he seemed really cool, so I agreed to live with them. Once I had arrived, we immediately got along really well. He had already somewhat gotten accustomed to talking to me online, so he knew that he had to use simple words and speak slowly. For the first week or so, he was my translator for Tomás because I couldn’t really understand Tomás at all haha.

Out of our group of friends, we're basically the only ones who don't live with our parents, so botellón always happens at our place. Martín is the responsible one who (usually) makes sure everyone is quiet enough so we don't disturb the neighbors. He's also the only person I have beat at ping pong so far (4 times total out of probably like 50...so sad).

Martín and Tomás both want to learn to speak English, so Martín had the idea to start English day in the piso! We have a little calendar hung on the wall in the living room that has our schedule of when we'll speak English and when we'll speak Spanish. We alternate so that every other day is English day. At the beginning of my time here, they were really good about sticking to it, but in the past couple weeks, they've been really lax about it. Personally, I'm glad that we're not speaking too much English, but for their sakes I should probably start making them speak English so they can get some more practice too. 

ROOMMATE PROFILE #2

NAME: Tomás Hernández Boix

AGE: 20

HOMETOWN: Carboneras, Almería

STUDYING: Psychology

LIKES: Drinking, stealing, going to the doctor, the words “primacho,” “exagerado,” and “calidad,” touching the water on my knee, telling me I have vigorexia, being my running buddy, socialism, starting debates with me knowing that I can’t win because I can’t explain my side well enough   

DISLIKES:  When I cook broccoli, waking up, going to class, George W. Bush, LA GORDA! (the fat girl that always seems to find him and flirt with him when we’re out)

Tomás is probably one of the funniest people I have EVER met. I am constantly laughing when I hang out with him. He was the first person I met when I came to the piso for the first time, and like I said, I couldn't really understand a word he said haha. He's got a really strange accent (I think it's pretty common in Carboneras) and a really strange vocabulary. He uses words in ways that literally no one else from Almería uses them (except people in our group of friends to make fun of him). His three signature words are "primacho" (often written "primaxo"...they use the "x" in writing for the "ch" sound...for example noche = noxe), "exagerado," and "calidad." Primacho is a combination of the words primo (cousin) and macho (basically man or dude). Both of these words are used to mean "man" or "dude" in different parts of Spain, so Tomás (or the people of Carboneras, I'm not sure which) has strategically combined both words to create his own term. However, we all use the word as his nickname. He is THE Primacho. "Calidad" literally means "quality," but Tomás uses it to mean cool. "Exagerado" or as it's written and pronounced here in Almería, "exagerao" essentially means extremely. Since I told Tomás that extremely is the English equivalent of "exagerao," he's now obsessed with that word too. He randomly throws it in, even when he's speaking Spanish and people always look at him really funny when he says it. His signature phrase to describe something that he really likes is "calidad exagerao." Say that to any other Spanish speaker that's not from Carboneras or in our group of friends and they will look at you like you're crazy! Here's a note Tomás left one day for Martín...perfect example of his lingo!

 

Translation: "Primaxo, In the end, I'm not going to go to class because I am extremely tired. See you later"

Also, Tomás is a raging kleptomaniac. He LOVES to steal things. He doesn't ever steal anything valuable, but when we are out, he always makes it his goal to steal something for the piso. So far we've got a total of 2 stolen chairs, 2 napkin holders, TONS of napkins, olive oil, tongs for picking up ice cubes, and probably 12 or so salt shakers...that's his favorite thing to steal. Here's a VIDEO from last year of Tomás stealing a tree for the piso so that they could have an "árbol de navidad" or Christmas tree....HAHAHAHHAHA!

LAST hilarious story about Tomás! A couple weeks ago, he bought new tennis shoes to go running with me. He was all excited to wear them for the first time because his last pair of shoes had been making his knees hurt. However, he didn't realize until after our run, that they were a size too small and THIS was the result...

Tomás's foot after being cleaned with iodine BAHAHAH

The bloody insole of his shoe. Blood actually seeped through to the outside of the shoe

He said, well about halfway through the run, my toes were hurting but I thought it was normal. HAHAHAHH! As you can probably tell, I never really get bored living with these guys and I never really stop laughing!

ROOMMATE PROFILE #3

NAME: Endika Alabau Sarasola

AGE: 21

HOMETOWN: Bilbao, Pais Basco

STUDYING: Nursing

LIKES: Drinking, sleeping, Athletic Club Bilbao (the soccer team from Bilbao), playing soccer, cooking

DISLIKES: The house rules for ping pong, having to climb in the back hatch of his car because the door handles are both broken (sound familiar Jim? Hahaha)

Endika was the last to join the piso. He didn't move in until the beginning of October, so he's been here a couple weeks fewer than we have. Our search for a 4th roommate was a long one..Martín and Tomás printed out flyers and hung them at the university and they got a lot of response...however, most of the people who came to look at the piso were WEIRD. We got really lucky that Endika showed up because he fits in really well with us. He's really nice, fun, and he brings some different perspectives to the piso since he's from a completely different part of Spain. He's from País Vasco or Basque Country--yes, that's where all the crazy ETA terrorists who want to secede from Spain are from. Since he's from there, when he first got here, Tomás kept telling me not to piss him off or I'd find a bomb in my room hahahah.

This is Endika's first year in Almería, just like me. His sister lives here, so I guess that's why he decided to move. He's studying nursing and has a REALLY weird schedule. He only has class Thursday, Friday, and Saturday every other week. Thursday he has 5 hours of class, Friday, 10, and Saturday, 5. He's got tons of free time but also an unfortunate schedule for being able to go out on the weekends.

He's also got a gym membership at the same gym as me, so sometimes we're gym buddies!

So, funny story about him. Sometime in the first week he was here, he got into a fight with Martín about the way we play ping pong here in the piso. If you miss your first serve or the ball hits the net, you're allowed a second chance. If you miss or hit the net on the second serve it's a double fault. Problem is, Endika plays where if the serve touches the net, it's a replay. He claimed that these were the official rules and that if we weren't going to play by the official rules then he wouldn't play. Annnnnd, he hasn't played since haha.

We also have a snunk rule...that is, if you lose 11-0, you have to buy your opponent a bottle of alcohol. I mayyy or may not have had to buy Tomás a bottle of rum last week haha.

That's all for now on the roomies but next post, I’ll try to do some friend profiles too!

In the world of work, after another week of classes, I have come to the realization that this system of me pretending I don't know any Spanish can never fully function how it is designed to unless all the teachers are bilingual. For example, when I go to classes where the teachers speak zero English, I can’t very well pretend that I don’t understand Spanish for the following reasons:

1. The teachers don’t know English to serve as my translators. When I’m in class with Yolanda, Valeria, or Virginia, I can pretend all day because they know how to explain to me in English what the students are saying.  However, in the other classes, it’s nearly impossible because if they need to tell me something, we’d have to step outside the classroom so that they students didn’t see me conversing with the teacher in Spanish. Here’s what happened Monday that made me realize this will never work. I was in Encarna’s 3^rd grade class. She doesn’t know any English. She told the kids to ask me questions in English, but none of them are confident enough in their English to try and she couldn’t very well help them. I was playing dumb, as instructed, so I wasn’t going to help either. Since they were silent, she told me to ask them questions and they could answer me in English. I started asking about families, pets, etc. When the kids were trying to answer me, they would ask Encarna, “Teacher, como se dice pájaro (bird) en inglés?” She had no idea how to answer any of their questions, and since I figured it would be counter-productive to just sit there and watch them struggle and get too frustrated to answer any of my questions, I started helping them with vocabulary in English. I didn’t know if I was supposed to do this or not, but I think that in the long run, it will be more beneficial for the students to learn at least some vocab even if it does mean I have to show them that I understand some Spanish. While in theory it’s a good idea for me to pretend I don’t understand, like I said before, it could only really work in a school where every teacher was bilingual.

2. Some of the teachers are too stubborn, closed-minded, and embarrassed to support the system.Lola’s class (5ºP), Marcos, one of the other teachers brought me in and introduced me to the class and Lola said to me in Spanish, basically, “Don’t speak English to me…only Spanish.” Great example to set for the students…you’re really encouraging them to speak English. And telling them to make an exception for you is like telling them it’s acceptable for them too. Luckily, 5^th grade is a good class and they’re still excited and eager to speak English with me. While this is not true of most of the teachers, I can tell that a few of them are quite reluctant to speak any English at all. For example, the first day that I was in

Yesterday in Infantil 5 with Isabel, I really had to break the rules. She doesn’t speak a word of English either and the students are only 5, so they know next to nothing in English (they can introduce themselves and count to 10 but besides repeating, that’s all they know how to do right now). I don’t think it’s gonna do anyone any good for me to just talk to them in English and have them sit there mindlessly. It’s really hard to engage 5-year-olds as it is, and when you’re not speaking their language it’s even worse. Since I figured the 5-year-olds weren’t gonna run around the school telling everyone I can speak Spanish, I went ahead, at Isabel’s suggestion, and spoke both English and Spanish with them so they would get more out of it. I can tell that class is going to be hard because, although it’s only 30 minutes, you really have to be doing something with them constantly. They’re very zombie-like…not yet curious enough to take an idea and run with it, and for some reason, they’re not as easily distracted as 1ºP. Also, the class is at 9:30, so maybe they’re still half asleep.

This was my first full week of work as last Monday and Tuesday were holidays and then I had an appointment at the Oficina de Extranjería on Wednesday (only had to work 1 day again!). 

My appointment at the Oficina de Extranjería on Wed (Oct 13^th) was ridiculous once again. I think it gets worse every time I go back. I had an appointment at 9am to get my fingerprints done for my TIE or residence card. Should have been a really quick, in and out, kinda deal. So I get there, get my number, wait about 10 minutes for my number to be called, but for some reason, the guy who I talked to, did not understand that I was there for fingerprints even though my name was on a list that he had at his desk for appointments AND I gave him the printed out sheet of paper that had been given to me last time I was there, explaining that I had an appointment for fingerprints. He sent me back to the desk to draw another number, and I had to wait like 2 hours before I talked to anyone. And the worst part of it all is that I ended up talking to the very same guy I talked to the very first time I ever went to the Oficina de Extranjeria and he had no idea why I had been referred over to him. He sent me back to get ANOTHER number. At this point, I was so mad. However, at the orientation a week before, a man named Damian, from the Oficina had come to explain everything and tell us that if we had any problems at all, to just come find him. So, I found him, told him I was an auxiliar de conversación, and he sent me straight to the guy I was supposed to see…I didn’t even have to wait!

But don’t worry, it doesn’t stop there! I had everything I needed except I hadn’t paid the tasa, or fee, for processing my TIE. This guy sends me to the bank to pay 10€, get a form stamped, and come back (not sure why we can’t make this service available in the actual office, but that’s another problem entirely). HOWEVER, you can’t pay the tasa if the form doesn’t have your NIE on it, and conveniently this fool had forgotten to write my NIE on the form. So I had to walk allllll the way back to the oficina, get him to write my NIE (which luckily I had since I had been to the oficina a few weeks before—I ran into 2 of the Americans I met last time I was at the office when we were out the other night and they told me they weren’t able to get their paperwork processed because they didn’t have their NIE’s), and walk allllll the way back to the bank. Finally, I returned to the office with my stamped paper and was able to get my fingerprints done and paperwork processed. Now, I have to go back in 40-45 days to get my card! By the time I got back to the piso, a total of 5 HOURS had passed. How ridiculous for a process that should have taken 1 hour MAX.  I’m sure there will be another update about me going back to pick up my NIE and TIE since I’m sure something will go wrong—it always does.

Out of all my classes, so far, my favorites are 1st grade and 5th grade. First grade is the class I get to spend the most time with. There's only 11 kids in the class and they are so sweet. I've already got quite the collection of drawings and things that they have given me. They're really lucky because Valeria is their teacher and she knows TONS of English. It's good that they're getting exposed to so much English at such a young age. To be completely honest, I think that their level of understanding of English is better than most of the other classes.

Fifth grade is also a really good class. It's bigger--probably about 20 kids, but they seem genuinely interested in learning English and they always participate. My favorite student is named Gonzalo. He's Argentinian (or at least his parents are, I'm not sure if he was born there or not), soooo smart, and his English is really good! The first day when I was in their class and I said I was from Texas, he raised his hand and asked me a question about the new Dallas Cowboy's Stadium! Most of the other questions were like, what's your favorite color? animal? season? How long did it take you to get here?, etc. I was impressed with not only the fact that he knew Dallas was in Texas and that he knew about American football, but also by the phrasing of his question. He's going to learn a lot this year!


To finish the post, I'll add some more pictures! ENJOY! A more complete album will be located on facebook...I'll include a link in a later post for everyone who's not on facebook!

View from my bedroom window

View from the bedroom again

Volleyball/SU collage

Family/Galveston collage

TEXAS

 

KT, I brought your license plate with me!

The reason my bags weight 59 and 70 lbs

View from the balcony

We live on the 7th floor

The papers Tomás rolls his cigarettes with...SAD :(

Sunset over the city from my bedroom window

 

Barely missed sunset at the beach

Paseo Maritimo looking west

Paseo Marítimo looking east

 

This is where they have sand volleyball tournaments during the summer

Paseo Maritimo from the jetty

Gran Hotel Almería and the Fuente (fountain) de los 102 Pueblos (towns) de Almería

Fuente de los 102 Pueblos de Almería

The sun over Playa Zapillo

Looking east...as you can see it's starting to get cold and beach season is coming to an end

Looking west

Ashley, the duck shoes live on!

The beautiful shore

Paseo Maritimo from the jetty--daytime

The port

Hello again!


This has been an exciting week for me! Since my last entry, I've gotten my bike, been to the gym and orientation, AND I've started work!

My gym is awesome. Like I said in the last post, it's like a 5-minute walk from my piso, so I can go in the morning and do my own workout and then go to a class at night if I want. With my habit of frequenting the gym and running often, my roommate Tomás has come to the conclusion that I have a problem: vigorexia. HAHAHA. But really, he as convinced my other roommates that I really have a problem. They like to remind me of it often.

At the gym on the ground floor, there's an olympic-size swimming pool, a huge 3 ft...sorry I mean 1m...deep pool, an enormous jacuzzi, steam rooms, two huge aerobic rooms, and all the locker rooms. On the second floor, there is another aerobics room, the sala de fitness, where all the machines and weights are, and a sala de bike, where they have spinning classes. Outside in the back, there are several pistas polideportivas, or multipurpose courts, for soccer, tennis (grass I think?), squash, and probably various other games.

Now here's the sad part, the pro volleyball team Unicaja Almería USED TO practice at my gym. Now apparently they practice somewhere across town :( Also, I can't even access the volleyball/basketball court(s). There are signs that say they are renovating, so I'm not sure if that's why the team moved to practice somewhere else/why I can't use the courts or what, but I am definitely bummed. While Unicaja Almería doesn't practice at my gym, the place where they play, Pabellón (pavillion) Moisés Ruiz, is really close to my piso. In fact, I can see it from my bedroom window...

 They have their first game sometime next week, so I'm gonna go by there sometime soon to check ticket prices, etc. I don't really want to go to the game by myself, but I don't think any of my roommates are interested enough in volleyball to go with me. One of Martín's friends, Raul, and his girlfriend, Stefy, who I met this past Friday, both play volleyball and are setters or as they're called here, colocadores. When I met them, they told me they'd be down to buy a net for voleyplaya, or sand vball. Hopefully we'll be getting a net soon and/or they'll want to go to some games with me.

Also, Raul told me that he knows some girls that play on an official team and he would ask them if they need an extra player. He isn't sure where they practice since the players are from all over, but if I could get on any sort of team, I'd definitely be willing to travel a bit for practices and stuff. I miss volleyball wayyy too much to pass up an opportunity like that.

This past Saturday, Lourdes was out of town, but I went to botellón with Luis, her boyfriend, Alberto, one of their friends, and Mari, Luis' brother Pedro's girlfriend (sorry that's really confusing). It was at Alberto's house, which is really close to the centro, or downtown. Botellón ended up turning into the whole night and we stayed there til around 5am. At 5, Alberto decided that he wanted me to have Luis's bike that he'd be borrowing, so when Luis took me home, Alberto went ahead of us on the bike haha. Sooo at 5am Sunday morning, I finally brought home my new bike!

It's a sort of hodge-podge bike that seems to have been repaired with parts from other bikes (you can probably see the red part below the shocks on the front wheel) but it works well enough for me. It's a 21-speed, aluminum, mountain bike...unfortunately the gear-adjuster thingy with 7 settings is broken, so it's really only a 3-speed bike haha. But most importantly, it was free and I get to use it all year! So, no complaints here!

I went to orientation on Tuesday. There were about 60 other auxiliares de conversación (that's my official job title) there. The first girl I met, Frankie, was from England. She was really cool and we exchanged contact information, but she teaches in a town an hour and a half away so who knows if we'll ever actually hang out. I really only talked to a couple of people there because I didn't especially want to make any English-speaking friends to give me any excuse to speak English. But anyway, it was boring. They just explained about how to get your NIE, TIE, and bank account, which I had already for the most part figured out after a SIGNIFICANT amount of trouble (see number 12 from my last post). There were 2 nice little letters printed up for you to take to the bank and the Oficina de extranjería so that you wouldn't have to go through all the trouble I went through. Would've been nice to have had those 2 weeks ago hah.Overall, I didn't find it to be too useful. There was food afterwards, so at least I got that out of it all. 

Wednesday, I finally went to Rioja for my first day of classes! Unluckily for me, all I ended up doing was getting my schedule from the coordinator of bilingual studies, Yolanda, and then sitting in the sala de profesores, or teacher's lounge all day until 2, when I got to leave.

 Sala de profesores

Yesterday was my first day actually working! My first class of the day was with Valeria and her 6- & 7-year-old students, or 1º Pimaria (basically 1st grade). This is the class I'll be working with most of the time, but I've also got quite a few other classes, including many that are not English classes. Here's my schedule...

 CM is Conocimiento del Medio which is basically science, Mate is Matemáticas (obviously math), Arte is art, and CSGH is Ciencias Sociales: Geografía y Historia (Geography and History). The P or E after the number is for either Primaria or ESO which is Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. Infantil is preschool and the number after it is the age of the kids.

The education system here is a little different than in the US. They have educación infantil for kids between 3 and 5. Then, there's educación primaria or as it's often called, colegio, which is basically elementary school except it goes to 6th grade instead of 5th. Then after that they have ESO, or instituto, which is 4 years long...age 12-16. After that they're not legally required to go to school anymore. After ESO, there are 2 options. If you're going to work, you do formación profesional which I think is 2 years long. If you're going to go to college, you do bachillerato which is also 2 years long, and then you have to take some hugely important test that you're only allowed to take once and that determines what you can and cannot study at the university. If you want to be a doctor, you have to have a VERY high score on the test to even be allowed to study medicine. If you don't score high enough on this test that you take at age 18, you can NEVER be a doctor...at least not in Spain. Weird system.

But anyway, after my first class with the little ones, I went to English class with Yolanda for 5º Primaria, which is basically 5th grade. After that, I had an hour break, then I went to my next class with Virginia, which is Science for 6º Primaria (as you can probably guess by now this is the 6th grade equivalent--the education system gets a bit more confusing once you pass 6º Primaria). 

So far, I really really like it! It's a lot different than I thought it would be, but I am enjoying it after day one. I'm literally only allowed to speak English when I'm in the classroom, which I figured would be the case. HOWEVERRR, what I didn't anticipate is that I'm not even allowed to let the students know that I can understand Spanish. I have to pretend that I don't know a word of Spanish in order to force them to try to explain things to me in English. After a day of faking it, it makes sense why I have to do it, but it's definitely hard to stand up in front of them and act like I have no idea what they're saying when they're obviously struggling with their English and I can, for the most part, understand them perfectly.

Thus far, I really like everyone I work with. Rioja and the colegio definitely have that small town feel about them that I like so much. There's lots more I could write about my first day, but I'll leave it at that for now and just follow it up with a few pictures that I took at school yesterday.

 

Valeria's classroom, 1º Primario

 

From the other side

 

Welcome to 1st grade!

 

My little ones! Only 11 kids in the class

More to come soon! For my next entry, I'll finally write some about my roommates and I'll post pictures of Almería. Jose (I met Jose 2 summers ago in Málaga when I studied abroad there and his family lives here in Almería--I don't think I ever clarified this for anyone who's following this and didn't already know) just got into town today from Málaga, so I'm going to hang out with him this weekend! We're supposed to go out on Luis's boat and fish at some point this weekend too, so I should be able to get some good pictures!

Adios!