Thanksgiving

I was invited by a girl I work with to celebrate Thanksgiving with her, her roommate, and a couple friends on Thanksgiving Day.  I thought it was really nice that she was trying to make an effort to celebrate some American holiday with me and I was looking forward to having them try "American" food, but....let's just say it's a little difficult to celebrate Thanksgiving over here.  First off, it's hard to find certain ingredients.  Cranberries?  Non-existent.  Pumpkin?  Well, it's a white pumpkin and if you really want to attempt to make a pumpkin pie from scratch then go for it.  Turkey?  We live in the country of jamon (ham) so it's not exactly popular.  The girl from work exclaimed that she would provide the chicken and my reply was that we needed to have turkey or at the very least ham!  Too bad she likes neither which is how Thanksgiving Number One ended up being like a nice meal.  The chicken was good and I made super yummy potatoes (probably the most Thanksgiving dish at that meal).  Of course there was jamon and cheese as an appetizer.  Not very Thanksgiving, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Thanksgiving Number Two was much more successful.  My friend Leslie and I went to Carrefour Saturday night in search of ingredients for our Thanksgiving feast where we found that: 1) Pumpkin is definitely hard to come by.  2) Cranberries are not sold at Carrefour.  3) Maple syrup is over 4 euros which is more than five dollars.  Good thing I made oreo cheesecake for dessert which everyone liked!  Even though we had a lack of ingredients we made do.  There was stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, a green bean casserole, and there wasn't any turkey (pork), but Leslie made a phenomenol cinnamon apple sauce.  I'm usually not a fan of baked apples, but I will most definitely be trying to make this on my own!  Although it wasn't quite like Thanksgiving from home, it was good comfort food and very delicious! 

As a side note, I'm glad I was able to skype with everyone on Thanksgiving!   It was nice talking to everyone from back home!

The cheesecake I made for Thanksgiving Number Two!

Food

I'm no expert at cooking, but I can do the basics and I almost always cook my meals.  They're pretty basic - meat and some sort of side dish, mostly potatoes or pasta.  It's not that I don't want to try and be more creative, it's just hard to do so over here!  There is definitely more of a variety of food back home and it's not like I can go to the store over here and pick up a box of macaroni and cheese to make.  I like baking back home, but trying to convert recipes is difficult.  The measurments aren't exact and it's hard to find certain ingredients.  I had to trek to the other part of town to go to IKEA to get measuring cups and I had to go to Hipercor, a store about a 20-25 minute walk (depending on if you are walking in the rain or not like I was yesterday) to find vanilla and sour cream.  I'm fortune that there is a larger store, Carrefour, about five minutes away from me.  It's comparable to a Meijers back home, although yesterday when I went to find some ingredients for a cheesecake I'm supposed to make it was hard to find some (i.e., sour cream, vanilla).  Let's not forget the fact that even if they do have the ingredients everything is smaller!  A pack of oreos isn't as big as back home, there's not as much cream cheese in a pack and it only comes in a container, and the pans to bake in our smaller.  I'm supposed to make this cheesecake for "Thanksgiving" dinner/lunch for Sunday so we'll see how the cheesecake turns out....I did successfully bake banana bread which I was very proud of.  As my mother has told me several times now you have to be precise with baking and well, let's just say even with my mL measuring cups converting a U.S. recipe to milliliters will result in 1 cup equaling an uneven amount so it's still not all precise, but precise enough!  People over here say they love the Spanish food, and yeah, it's fine and all, but I miss the variety from back home.  If I do want to bake or need ingredients that are harder to find they're always so much more expensive.  A jar of peanut butter is around 3.39 euros - that's a $4.50 jar of peanut butter.  It better be good if I'm paying that much.  For all the ingredients that I had to buy yesterday for this cheesecake I probably could have gone to a panaderia and bought something for cheaper so it better work out and taste good too.

Jerez is famous for its wine and I have to say, it's pretty good.  Jerez translates to "sherry" so right there you know it must have good wine!  They have all different types over here and more than half of the time I don't know what type is what.  I usually get the standard rioja, a red wine, and it's never failed before.  I've had two different white wines and I wasn't a fan because it didn't have a great aftertaste.  So if you ever come to Spain, or particularly Jerez (hint to mi madre) order a rioja.  They'll know what you're talking about.

I'm usually a picky eater (that may be just a tad bit of an understatement), but I have definitely ventured out while I've been here!  When I first came to Jerez and was staying with two girls before I found my flat there was this dish that had some sort of meat and another type of food in it.  I have no idea what the other food was and I have no desire to find out.  I'm not sure if it was a type of pea (my least favorite food ever) or something completely different, but I still ate most of it.  Another time I was invited to eat with the two ladies I work with who live in Jerez and the day before I was going to eat with them the one lady was explaining what kind of meat she was preparing.  She asked me if I liked pork and I said yes, then she proceeded to tell me that it was "secret" meat from a pig.  Secret?  I didn't like the sound of that and the next day I most definitely tried to not think about what part of the pig I was eating, although it wasn't bad.  The next time I went to Carrefour and I was looking at the meat section, sure enough there it was on the label saying it was "secret" meat.  It wasn't bad, but I won't be buying that to make for myself. 

I've heard of arroz con leche (a classic dish that every student in Spanish class has heard of), but I had never tried it before and honestly I wasn't too sure what was in it.  One day my roommate brought me some that her mother had made.  As I said before, it's actually a desert and it's cold cooked rice with milk and cinnamon.  It may sound not too great, but it was actually really good!  And last but not least, let's not forget about the bull's tail. 

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving and the two ladies at work said that we should celebrate it together.  First off I should make it clear that it is extremely hard to find ingredients that we normally associate with Thanksgiving.  Pumpkin?  Forget that, although for the Thanksgiving on Sunday my friend's roommate's family grows pumpkins (in luck!) and they're attempting to make a pie from scratch.  The one lady said she would bring chicken and my response was "you have to have turkey or at least ham on Thanksgiving!", but I found out she doesn't like turkey or ham.  So much for a real Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving.  I suppose it's the thought that counts right?  I told them I would make potatoes and the one girl didn't really respond to that and their idea of a dessert is fruit (more like a side dish to me) so we'll see how Thanksgiving Part 1 turns out. 

Speaking of Thanksgiving I have been having all my classes make turkeys using construction paper, crayons, etc.  I wanted to use paper plates and then have them use construction paper to make feathers, but all the plates here are plastic.  One of the many things that one would think is easy to find in Spain, but it's not.  I've attached some pictures below of my first grade class making their turkeys.  I hope everyone back home has a Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Out of the comfort zone

It's one thing to live on your home back in the U.S. and it's something else entirely when you do it in a different country.  I lived on campus my last two years in college, but it was close enough to go home every weekend and still have home cooked meals : ) so my first time actually living on my own is out of the country!  Although I've never really studied abroad in a different country for a long period of time like a semester or year, I still think it would be somewhat different.  You have people to rely on if you need help with things such as professors, whoever is in charge of the program, fellow students, etc., and I imagine it's much easier to be acquainted with everything since you have this added help.  Being in the program I am calls for a lot of independence and is definitely a growing experience.  There's no one really there to help you out if you need help, perhaps in extreme conditions, and if your schools offers help that's great, but for the most part you are on your own.  Two ladies who live in Jerez helped me find my piso, but that's basically been the extent of the help I've gotten.  When you first arrive in Spain you have to apply for the NIE, a foreign number that allows you to stay in the country.  I had to figure out where exactly I needed to go in Jerez and do the entire process by myself and it's still ongoing, even though it has been almost two months since I've been here!  After you get the NIE you need the TIE which is the number with your photo on a card.  You have to pay a fee, send those papers off to Cadiz, and wait (or so I think) until the card arrives.  Besides applying for the NIE I had to open a bank account all bymyself and now I have a bank account in Spain!  It's still weird to think about, but at the same time it's really cool because it's like a statement of my independence here. 

You are also forced to come out of your shell here.  I'm pretty shy, but here your forced to speak and communicate with people in order to accomplish things like getting the NIE, bank account, etc., and just everyday things such as asking for directions, buying a train ticket, etc.  It's good because I have to use Spanish and it makes you more confident.

Not only am I (somewhat at this point - poco a poco!) more confident in Spanish, but I have definitely been more open to trying new food.  I'm a very picky eater so I have "limited" food options, but I've already tried things that I would never have tried back at home.  I've had "secret" meat from a pig (still not sure what part it was and I do not want to know), arroz con leche which is cooked cold rice with milk and cinnamon, and just this past weekend I had, in my opinion, the most exotic of all - bull's tail!  Yes, that's right, a bull's tail!  I'm not sure if this is something that is popular in just Andalucia, but I have heard about it several times and on Saturday there were five of us who went out to several different places for tapas.  At one of them we ordered bull's tail and yes, I tried it!  It actually wasn't too bad tasting, a little fatty, but it tasted like roast beef or something along that line.  It still hard to wrap my mind around eating a bull's tail, but hey, now I can say I've tried it!

Living in a different country can be uncomfortable and yes, there's a culture shock, but it really does make you grow more as a person.  I feel like if I can do all of these things in Spain then living on my own and conquering things back home in the U.S. will be so much easier!

Britishisms

Yesterday I was in one of the second grade classes and they were learning about weather.  The teacher shows them flashcards of a certain type of weather and they have to say what it is like raining, snowing, windy, etc.  After the weather flashcards the English teacher pulls out other flashcards with different pictures of a coat, umbrella, etc.  When the students don't know the answer I say what the word is out loud so they can hear the pronunciation of it.  She shows a card and at first I wasn't sure if it was socks or rain boots so I look at the back of the card and it says "wellies."  My response:  "Wellies?  What are wellies?"  Her response:  Shrug.  It wasn't until when I saw in their book the lion wearing the "wellies" and it was splashing in water that I realized it was the word for rain boots.

They  learn the British English here so rubbers are erasers, school bag is backpack, mum is mom, granny and grandad are grandma and grandpa, and the letter Z is pronounced like the word said.  Let's not forget the grammar!  They say "have you got" instead of "do you have" and it always makes me inwardly cringe while I'm thinking no, no, no, you have it all wrong!  That's improper grammar!  It's not as if I can interrupte and say "oh, excuse me, but that's not what we say where I live".  Sometimes I wish the English teacher would ask what we call things such as with the wellies incident, but she doesn't.  I guess it's all something I will have to live with!

More about what I do

Here's some more info on what exactly I do.  My official title is a language and cultural assistant, so not only am I supposed to help teach the kids English, but also about U.S. culture.  I only work three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 9-2 and there's a half an hour break during that time period from 11:45-12:15.  I work with the English teacher and the grades at the school are 1-6, although she only works with 2-6.  Most of the grades have two classes except for 1, 3, and 4 so I am with each class one time throughout the week.  I basically come up with anything I want to talk about with the class and do a short lesson with some activities.  The program at my school isn't very structured which makes it somewhat hard, but it gives me more freedom to do what I want to.  I plan a lesson for each week since I have the different classes all throughout the week while I'm there.  So far I've talked about where I'm from, my family, likes, dislikes, etc., Halloween, and this past week with the older students I talked about the different types of schools in the U.S. and then asked them questions to go along with it.  With the younger students I reviewed the ABCs and in a Highlights magazine that I brought over with me there was a drawing activity where you use letters to make animals.  For example, you used an S to make a swan, X's and O's to make a spider, etc.  Next week I'm going to talk about the human body and the following week about Thanksgiving.

The exception to all this is the 1st grade class.  I work with them four different times during the week and it's with their teacher.  Instead of working in the class with them I have four different students each time I'm in there and we go to a separate room where I teach them English.  Since they are only five to seven I have to explain things in Spanish, but I make sure to say it in English also.  I like working with them by myself and in smaller groups because it's easier for them to focus and for me to teach them.  Plus I get to teach them what I want.  We've reviewed colors, numbers (although they only know to 12, but that will change!) and this week I went over the ABCs.  My mom sent me a great color-by-numbers coloring book and it had letters in there so it was great for this week since it focused on the alphabet, numbers, and colors.  Of course it's difficult for them to remember all the letters at this age, but I was pretty impressed with how many some of them could remember!  I wrote their names on the board and had them tell me each letter in English and one boy, Francisco, knew them all except S!  I had found Chicka Chicka Boom Boom on youtube and today I showed the one class the story and they all liked it. 

I also have bilingual classes with three of the teachers.  One is with the English teacher and the other two are with teachers who are in the level two at the language school (there's three levels).  In the past I've printed out articles and we've read them, talked about them, and then I've asked questions about them and different topics in general.  Next week though I'm going to have them watch the first few minutes of The Office from the pilot so we can talk about what an office setting is like.  I have questions prepared about the objects, clothing, and comprehension questions.  I need to do some more research, but after that I think I'll do a mock interview with them, but we'll see how that goes! 

I'd talk about my kids and their behavior, but that's a whole other post!

Here are two activities I did with the first grade class at Halloweek.  The first was a matching game with different Halloween words and for the second one I had them draw the eyes, nose, and mouth of the vampire since we had talked about some of the body parts the week before.

FIFA World Cup

Okay, so I realize the World Cup (also known to Jill, Jackie, and I as FIFA Fever), happened over the summer, but I have to make a comment about it and futbol, or soccer as we know it, in general.  First off, the World Cup is basically the World Series, the Superbowl, the Wimbeldon, etc. etc., of soccer and it only occurs every four years, a fact I didn't know about until later.  It's a month long event, another fact I didn't realize, of soccer matches between countries all around the world and this past year it was held in South Africa.  Europe is a huge soccer continent and Jill, Jackie, and I were fortunate to be in Europe throughout most of it (of course we missed the final two matches for the main title and second place!).  I remember we were in Lucerne, Switzerland when it began because there were banners on all the bars and restaurants along the river.  We weren't super into it at first, but along our trip we kept hearing FIFA this and matches would be on in the hostels.  It was pretty unavoidable and there were several times that we found ourselves watching a match such as in Berlin at the biergarten, numerous hostels, the crazy Brazilians in Amsterdam and who can forget when we were in Prague at the Old Town Square with the vagabond dance-off!  Need I say more? Spain ended up winning when we got back to Minnesota (how about those Spainards!) and I never gave too much thought to it after that until recently.

The one Friday I went with my roommate, who is a secretary at a girl's youth club, and in one of the activity classes they were dancing to this song called Waka Waka.  Apparently it was the theme song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and I was pretty impressed that these eight and nine year old girls knew this whole dance.  It wasn't until I kept hearing the song and went on the excursion with them where even more girls were dancing and singing to it that I realized how huge this song is over here which made me think even more about the World Cup.  It was exciting being in Europe where all these people and different countries are huge devoted fans and it's something else to see how united and emotional everyone is about it. 

When I first came to my school I had students ask me who my favorite team was, Real Madrid or FC Barca, the two most popular teams in Spain, the first being based in Madrid and the latter in Barcelona.  I told them I didn't have a favorite and that I liked American football to which they shouted 'Rugby!'  Not quite.  One particular student pulled out a map and was asking me all these questions ('Do you know anyone famous?'  The answer was no which was met by disappointment), and one asked me if I had met Cristiano Ronaldo and had his autograph.  Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the most famous soccer players in Spain and he plays for Real Madrid.  He's actually Portuguese and I replied no to those questions too. 

I'm not a huge soccer fan, but I have to say watching the World Cup was pretty exciting and intense!  I never really wanted to see a game here in Spain, but who knows, maybe if I ever have the opportunity I just might go to one!  Below I've attached the music video for Waka Waka by Shakira so everyone can see the dance.  It's also really cool seeing everything from the World Cup!

Finally a post!

It's been a while since I have posted something, but that's not my fault!  I didn't have internet at my flat so I had to connect to random networks using my ipod or go to an internet cafe where I had to do other things such as prepare activities for work.  Now I have internet so I will be able to update more frequently!

My roommate is a secretary at youth club for girls and the one weekend there was an excursion some of them could go to at a nearby national park.  I went along with them as a "monitor" and we hiked some trails while later on all of the girls kept complaining how tired they were and how they were so hungry.  After lunch we went to this so-called cave where they had Neolithic cave drawings.  It wasn't nearly as exciting as it sounds because the cave was basically a big rock outside and you could barely see the drawings on the cave. 

This past weekend I went to Valencia with a friend who is in the same program as me, but lives in Catalunya, the northern part of Spain that borders France and the Mediterranean.  Her program is so different than mine because once we get accepted our regions are in charge of the different details.  She has to give two presentations later on in the year about her role in the program and she had to have all this paperwork in by a certain time so she could get paid.  She also has to attend two more orientations about what they can do to improve in the classroom.  We have to do none of the above!  She also has a time set apart where she talks with the teacher she is working with on what activities she can do so it goes along with what the students are learning.  I basically come up with something and ask the teacher if it's okay if the next week I do this or that and she says yes.  I try to do it based off a theme like the one week it was Halloween and next week I'm going to talk about schools in the U.S. 

Valencia is a great city though!  I was fortunate to stay in a hostel located in the city center so I could walk to most of the major sights like the Cathedral, a neat ceramic museum where the inside really looked like a palace, etc.  Valencia is famous for paella, a rice and vegetable dish mixed with fish, but we didn't eat that because neither of us really liked what was in it.  They're also famous for their oranges and the one morning at breakfast I had orange juice and it was the freshest orange juice I've ever had.  I also found a cafe where most of the menu items are chocolate, my favorite, so my friend and I split churros that you dipped in chocolate.  Right next to my hostel there was a cupcake store called Cupcake Valencia that had a bunch of different varieties of cupcakes.  Yum!

There is this really cool part of the city called the Arts and Sciences center where it is a bunch of different buildings, but the architecture of the buildings is what makes it really neat!  They have a science museum there, a place where sporting events are being held like right now there was a professional tennis championship going on, an aquarium, and an IMAX theatre.  We went to the aquarium on Saturday and I knew it was one of the biggest in the world, but I expected it to be like Newport Aquarium where it was just one really big building, but it wasn't.  It was a bunch of different buildings divided into different places like Arctic, Temperate, Tropical, etc. and you had to walk outside to get to the different ones.  We were lucky enough to be there when there was a dolphin show which was very cool to see!  On Monday after my friend had to catch her train I went back to the IMAX, called L' Hemisferic, and saw a show on Arabia.  I tried to watch it in English in first just because I wanted to be sure I could understand it, but we had to wear these weird headsets that went completely around your head and it had a microphone in it.  There was a button you pushed to change the language, but when I pushed it, it only stayed on Spanish so I watched it in Spanish.  Luckily I understood most of it except for a few sentences here and there so I felt very proud of myself!  Also on Monday Sarah and I went to the beach.  I thought there might have been a boardwalk area, but there wasn't, only a couple of restaurants.  It was cool when we went, in the 60s, but there were still people there in bathing suits!

Me at the Arts and Sciences area in Valencia

This week was a pretty good week so far!  I received a package from home that we were worried about reaching here because on facebook under the auxiliares group there were a few girls saying they had packages sent from home, but they were stuck in Madrid and they either had to go to Madrid to get them or pay a large amount of money to get it to them.  Luckily my package came and I was so excited!  I was surprised to find Lost Season 6 in there (yayyy!!!!!) which made me extremely happy.  I also had a card from my sister and her yearbook photo from this year.  The things she says just cracks me up!  The day before I had received a card from one of my best friends which also made me extremely happy!  I also received my first paycheck the day before unexpectedly so that was great too!  I hoped that my good fortune extended to Friday which was when I had to go to the National Police to pick up my NIE, my number so I can stay in Spain.  I easily received it and then I went to the library where my library card was ready and I checked out two books in Spanish.  Then I went and opened a bank account, although they later called my roommate later and said I needed some papers that showed my economic status in Spain (not too sure on that.  I have to talk to my school Monday) and then I was FINALLY able to get the internet so overall it was a good week!

The Cathedral in Sevilla

Me in front of the Alhambra in Granada

Also, if you want to see more pictures from my time in Spain you can look at them on my facebook, but if we aren't friends yet you need to add me!  facebook.com/katie.collins.l.