European and American differences

Okay, here are some European/Spanish observations that I've come across.  I've been reading some other blogs lately and some people pointed out things and when I read it I thought "they are so right!"  So here they are.

1. If you speak English you are assumed to be British
Just a couple weeks ago I had the teacher at the private group class I teach once a week at say she thought I was English.  It's pretty obvious that I am a guiri (foreign person) and knowing that I speak English a lot of people say, "Oh, you are from England!"  No.  That is like saying everyone who speaks Spanish back home is from Mexico.  In school I still get asked from kids where I'm from.  Shows how much they listen.

2. Tights as pants and boots
First off, tights are NOT pants.  Apparently Europeans think so and let's just say it does not flatter half the people who wear them so.  The most popular foot apparel over here are boots.  I feel like every time I go outside it's like a fashion show.  People over here get dressed up for everything and so put together the whole tights as pants with boots and then there's me in my jeans and you feel slightly ridiculous.  But seriously, I'll take comfort over trying to impress these Europeans with their wacky fashion sense anyday.  If they ever came to the U.S. they would be out of place.  Unless they were in New York, maybe.

Tights as pants and boots (close enough at least).  Not flattering.

3. Everything in Europe is smaller
We have bigger cars, houses, food portions, etc. back home.  People ask if I drive (yes, I can and no, I don't have a death wish to try and drive over here) and I say yes.  Some ask what kind and I say a Toyota Corolla, but I explain that it's bigger and different looking than the ones here.  You rarely see cars the size we're used to over here, although occasionally.  And vans virtually don't exist.  Well, as the saying goes I guess we really do 'go big or go home'. 

4. Things close at least one day a week
It's like the city shuts down on Sundays.  All the stores, groceries, etc. are closed except for the occasional cafe or restaurant.  Usually one day a week in most parts of Europe museums will be closed.  Let's not forget the 'siesta' time where stores usually close then too.

5. Strikes/Protests
They have strikes and protests over here in Europe like they're going out of style.  Last weekend I got a notice from the State Department saying something along the lines of "Beware!  The Communist Party of Spain is having a protest about Spain's participation in Libya in Madrid on Saturday."  No surprise there.  Remember when I went to Florence and ALL of the museums were on strike except for one day while I was there?  And remember when I flew over and most of the Spanish airlines were on strike?  Yeah, me too.

6. Techno Music
I don't know what it is about techno music, but I've come to the conclusion that Europeans love it.  On the way to work there will almost always be some strange techno music I hear on the radio and usually it's in English.  I'm definitely not a fan, but if you're an English speaker and want to make it big in the techno music business then head over to Europe.  Case in point:  Duck Sauce.  They have the most ridiculous song EVER called Barbara Streisand and it's super popular over here.  You even hear it in commercials.  Did I mention it only has two words in the entire song?  I'm sure you can guess them: Barbara Streisand.

Travel Bucket List



Burano, Italy



Everyone's heard of a bucket list before and I'm pretty sure that if I ever decided to make one it would mostly have a list of places I wanted to visit so instead of making a regular old bucket list I decided to make a travel one.  Some of the things I've already completed although most of them I haven't and they are in no particular order, but this'll be a good reference for the future when I decide to travel more. : )

1. Go backpacking

I first thought of going backpacking in high school and back then I wanted to do it in the UK.  The UK, specifically London, was always my number one place I wanted to travel to.  Two summers ago I really wanted to do it and what was stopping me?  I decided to go big and might as well conquer Western Europe so I asked my friend Jill if she wanted to go and that was that.  Of course I made sure to check that it was okay with my parents and they were all for it so last summer Jill, Jackie, and I spent almost five weeks backpacking around Western Europe hitting up all the big cities.  One of the best experiences ever. 

 2. Live abroad

Well, this is the point of of my blog, to keep everyone updated while I'm living here in Spain.  This was more of a thought than an active I'm-going-to-go-live-abroad goal.  I always thought it would be super cool although back then I wanted to live in the UK (like I said - it was the number one place I wanted to visit.  My mom even bought me a travel book on Great Britain.  This is why I'm going back there after I leave Spain).  When I got an e-mail from NKU about being an English teaching assistant I thought why not?  I tend to do these things where I don't really think I'll get accepted and decide to deal with it when I hear back.  Amazingly enough I was accepted, and in the top region I picked, Andalucia.  I accepted because I knew it was the best way to improve my Spanish and as it got closer to the time to leave I definitely had second thoughts.  Eight months living in a country all by myself?!  Did I really want to improve my Spanish that bad?  Well yes, and let's not forget I knew that I would have awesome opportunities to travel around Europe and when I know I have the chance to travel, I'll jump at it.  Plus I knew it would be a great learning experience.  So far, no regrets.

3. Visit all the continents - minus Antarctica

I was talking to my mom one day a few weeks ago and she gave me the idea to visit all the continents.  I'm not a fan of the cold so I'll skip out on Antarctica although seeing penguins in their natural habitat would be so cool.  So far I only have two continents marked off.  I could have visited Morocco while I was here, but it never really worked out.  This is now one of my top goals on this list.

4. Travel to Scandinavia

It was never on my list of places that I had to go to, but recently I've had the urge to go there.  Denmark always seemed to be a cool place to visit and while my mom was here she mentioned she wanted to visit Scandinavia too.  Well that just sealed the deal so I'm saving this trip to do with her one day.

5. Go on a cruise

Who doesn't want to go on a cruise?  You hop on a boat where you can eat food all day, they have activities for you to do, you get to go visit different places while getting to lounge on a beach (if you choose a beach destination).  Jill's family decided to go on a cruise over spring break our senior year of high school and she invited me so of course I said yes.  We went to the Bahamas and it was tons of fun.  Minus the major sunburm on my feet that turned them slightly purple.

6. Walk the Great Wall of China

Honestly I have no huge desire to see a bunch of countries in Asia except for China.  Yeah, some of the beaches in Southeast Asia sure do look nice, but I'd rather visit other places before spending a lot of money to visit a beach in Thailand or Fiji.  One place I do want to visit in Asia is China.  On one season of America's Next Top Model they went to Shanghai and I remember seeing it all lit up at night and I thought it was so cool.  It looked very futuristic.  Beijing is the capital so why not stop there and then there's the Great Wall.  It's one of the Seven New Wonders of the World and I think it's pretty amazing that back then men built this structure that's over 4,000 miles long.  And you can see it from outer space.  Awesome.



Shanghai at night



7. Visit Auschwitz

I know it's morbid and it's a piece of history that we wished never happened, but I have this fascination with the Holocaust.  Now don't think I'm a creep, it's just that this period has always been interesting to me and I enjoy learning about it.  Auschwitz was the largest and by far the harshest concentration camp during the Holocaust and millions of people died there.  I've visited a concentration camp before, Dachau, the first ever concentration camp that's a little outside of Munich.  It's definitely an experience that one will never forget and the one thing I couldn't get over about Dachau was that you could still find barbed wire around parts of the camp.  When we went to the Czech Republic Jill and I visited what used to be a Jewish ghetto called Terezin.  During World War II the entire town left and it became a ghetto.  If you've ever seen the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas you'll remember how they made films showing what concentration camps were "really like".  Terezin was one of the places where they made these films at.  It was one of the creepiest places I've ever been to and why anyone would want to live in that town I have no idea.  It was almost like a ghost town and most of the people who were there in World War II ended up going to Auschwitz where a majority of them died.  Although visiting a concentration camp is definitely a grim thing it's a moving experience and it's part of history that we shouldn't forget.

8. Traverse through Russia/Eastern Europe

I decided to put these two together since if I ever do go to Russia (which I want to, obviously) then I might as well hop over to Eastern Europe too.  I always thought Russia would be an interesting place to visit, especially Moscow just so I could see St. Basil's Cathedral.  That's one of the coolest pieces of architecture I've ever seen.  St. Petersburg is the other huge city in Russia so why not stop there too?  Only since I've been in Spain and researching places I might visit while being here have I become interested in Eastern Europe.  It's still relatively cheap to visit countries in the East since some of them still aren't part of the EU so their currencies are as strong.  When we visited Prague in the Czech Republic things were definitely cheaper than in other countries in Europe.  So here are the places I'd like to visit if I go to Eastern Europe:  Poland.  I'd mainly want to go to Poland just to visit Auschwitz, although they have some castles there too and who doesn't like visiting castles?  Budapest, Hungary.  I've read some about Budapest and it talks about caves and labrynths in the city.  How awesome is that?  Ljubljana, Slovenia.  This would definitely be on my list to see.  They have castles, caves, and it sounds like a majestic place to visit.  Lastly, Croatia.  Apparently Croatia is the new it-country in Europe thanks to the beaches on the Dalmation Coast. 



St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow



9. Visit Australia
The prime time to go down under would be during our winter months when it's nice and hot there so you can visit the beaches (so jealous of Jill who is in New Zealand right now!).  Australia is one of those semi-exotic places for Americans because it's halfway around the world and they have kangaroos and koalas that hang out in their backyard.  (This is a fact.  On a night train to Switzerland last summer we met two Australian girls and talked about it.  Apparently those Aussies really don't like kangaroos).  Who doesn't want to see the famous Opera House, drive around the outback, or see the Great Barrier Reef?

10. Drive cross-country
Just getting in a car, listening to music, and driving across the U.S. to wherever you please sounds pretty neat.  Stop at random places you see along the way and see what our great country has to offer has an appeal.  Not to mention there wouldn't be a language barrier and we're already natives so there wouldn't be as many worries.

11.  Drive through Western Ireland
I really tried to make this work out while I was here, well, minus the whole driving part.  They have tour groups that go around South/Western Ireland and I almost decided to go on one for Semana Santa, but it was a bit pricey.  I'm thinking the best way to do this in the future is to get in a car and drive around.  I seriously want to make this happen one day.  Dublin was tons of fun so you can only imagine how amazing and fun going to the most Irish part of Ireland must be. 

The Cliffs of Moher in Ireland

Spaniards and Geography

As I said in my last post, I've been going over the continents and oceans with my classes and in one of my private classes.  As part of the lesson I asked which continent certain countries are in.  Let's just say Spaniards, or Andalucians, are AWFUL at geography.  I feel like a group of 10-12 year olds should know where at least some countries are, such as China, Brazil, countries within their own continent, etc.  The education system here, or in Andalucia, is most definitely not up to par like the U.S.  People back home complain so much about our education system, but really, they need to travel to other countries and see it for themself. 

Here are a couple examples:  Yesterday in my private lesson I asked where Italy was.  I got various answers from Asia, Africa, to Australia.  Not even close.  Today in my fourth grade class I asked where the United States was.  I'm pretty sure I got every answer except North America.  When I started off the lessons on asking the names of continents I had students shouting countries.  "China!  Ireland!  Italy!"  I kept saying those were countries, not continents, but they don't understand what I'm saying half the time and they were all screaming their heads off so it's not like they really heard me anyway. 

Let's hope that these Spanish ninos have learned something from my lesson this week.

School and Teaching

Here are a couple more school observations:  First, one of the most popular words students say is a form of the word "mentira" which means lie.  Usually they will just shout "mentira!" at one another if someone says something they don't believe it's true or they'll call each other "mentiroso/a", or liar.  Pretty sure not a day goes by that I don't hear the word at least once.  Second, boys cry way more than girls do.  I can only remember seeing girls cry a few times whereas the boys cry over the littlest things.  I'm pretty sure they do it just for attention, but back home if a boy wants attention you most definitely would not see him crying about it.  Here is an example of two boys, in 5th grade, crying today.  As we all know, hitting each other is no big deal in the school so it wasn't surprising when two boys were punching each other.  One boy started to cry and the teach wrote the other boy up for it.  Basically all he has to do is get his parents to sign the paper.  So the boy who hit the other boy started crying because he was written up.  Boys.

This week I'm talking about geography and oceans in the 2-6 grade classes and the days of the week and months in my first grade class.  I feel like this is the most interactive so far the children have been although some of them still don't listen at all.  In my first grade class I gave them a more difficult worksheet (for them at least) where they had to put the months in order and rewrite the word and also unscramble the days of the week.  You definitely feel proud of yourself when you know that kids are learning something and once they understand what they have to do they do it all by themself.  Even though the kids still behave badly and it takes forever for them to be quiet before I can start going over the lesson it still makes me happy that they are (hopefully) learning something and I'm the one teaching them!

Showers here are a finnicky thing

One thing I cannot wait for when I get back home is a normal, hot shower.  Here is what a shower for me entails:
First, I have to turn on the hot water.  This calls for me lighting a match and having to stick it into this box thing while turning some knob so I can have hot water.  So when I wash dish, wash my hands or my face, etc., the water is always cold.  Second, hope that your water is hot or at least semi-hot.  We have a gas tank and I swear that since January the water has never been hot hot, only warm.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a truly hot shower and it's been two and half months now.  Seeing as the water isn't very hot you try and hurry your way through it, but sometimes you notice that the water is getting colder and colder.  This means the stupid flame that you had to light the match for has gone out and you better finish your shower in less than one minute or else you will be showering in ice cold water.  This is what happened today except I realized it so I quickly finished.  Unfortunately a couple weeks ago it happened too and it was NOT pleasant.  Honestly, showering should not be this difficult.

My relationship with Spanish

Back in the day I used to have a love-hate relationship with Spanish.  I always wanted to learn another language, but it's hard work.  The only C+ I ever got in a class was my one quarter in AP Spanish.  Remembering every single grammar tense, all those difficult listening activities, and just putting it altogether.  Talk about tough stuff.  Then there was the college semester I took a Spanish Literature class and half the stuff we read was from the middle ages or the 17th and 18th centuries.  It was like reading Shakespeare in Spanish.  Talk about difficult.  Sometimes I felt like it would take me forever to read something in Spanish and it was absolute torture trying to do so.  Sure, you can remember all the grammar tenses you want, but out here in the real world it is completely different.  You learn vocab that isn't used in this neck of the woods and they use some other funky word and then there are other times when you hear them using some grammar tense and you think, 'why are they using that?'  But you catch on and everything starts making a little bit more sense and then you realize that you can actually understand these Andalucian Spaniards and you're proud of yourself, because really, that is a feat in and of itself.  Going into college I remember saying I didn't want to use Spanish for my everyday job, I only wanted to know it just in case.  Over the years that has obviously changed and now I want to teach Spanish.  People would always ask me if I was fluent in Spanish and I would always say no.  It's nearly impossible to be fluent in a language if you haven't lived in a country that speaks the language and even then you have to have lived there for a long time.  I'll always constantly be learning something new in Spanish because really you can't speak like a native speaker unless you have lived in the country half of your life.  Even when I come back if someone asked me if I was fluent my answer would still be no, although my level is much higher than it used to be.  And I guess you could also say that Spanish has become very dear to me.  We're pretty good friends now.

As a side note, this week in my classes I talked about St. Patrick's Day and had a worksheet for the classes to do.  Today in one of my second grade classes one of the girl's pointed to a picture on the worksheet of a pot of gold.  She asked, "What is this?  A bomb?"  I couldn't help myself and laughed out loud.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!     

Random Things

Nothing too interesting has happened lately so here are some random thoughts/things.

It's finally supposed to stop raining tomorrow.  It basically rained for the past week with the exception of Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday morning.  The rain needs to stay away because the whole time it rained it was ridiculously windy with doesn't go very well with umbrella.

Yesterday at school in my third grade class a boy came up to me and said "un besito!" (a kiss - aka the cheek kiss).  Then he proceeds to tell me "I haven't given you a kiss in a while".  How cute.  Too bad my cheek was wet with slobber afterwards. 

Walking can be quite dangerous around here since I'm pretty sure has the worst drivers ever.  Even when the stop light is red, you best be careful.  Sometimes cars decide not to stop and they zoom on by and when you are at a crosswalk you're never sure if the car is going to stop or not.  Usually they go super fast and stop right before the crosswalk.  I'm surprised more people don't get hit around here.

My best investments so far in Spain have been two things: slippers and my Carrefour grocery bag.  I figured out early on the slippers were a necessity when it became clear that my flat was absolutely freezing.  Now I always wear them and my feet are nice and warm.  Best four euro investment ever.  As for my Carrefour bag, it's basically one of those big bags all the eco-friendly-let's-protect-the-enviroment people use back home.  Over here you have to pay for bags when you go to the grocery and it's much easier to pile everything in one big bag rather than three or four.  Much easier to carry.  Best one euro investment.