We're still working on the whole faster intenet thing, but here are so pictures of our apartment! Enjoy and let me know what you think!!
Xoxo,
Court

My bedroom!.

                                                                                                            From the other side.

View outside my window

The Bathroom!

The Shower!

The Hallway!

The Kitchen!

The Fridge!

The Microwave/Washing Machine/Dishwasher!

The Patio!

The Living Room!

We were out until midnight last night. I had some tinto de verano (red wine). Some people mix it with other drinks, like in this case it was mixed with lemonade, so it was quite citrusy and yummy! Usually tapas or something are included when you buy a drink…we were served olives, French fry/chips that tasted like bugles, cheese balls, sugar coated gummy shapes (do those have a name?) and Dorito like chips (with the exception of the olives, I thought the “tapas” choices were a bit odd for Spain). Not that I’m complaining though, since I didn’t actually have dinner last night, I was hungry!

I had to be a school at nine(ish) today, so I was up by 7:15 (the shower was much better today, in case you’re wondering). I actually left a few minutes after nine, so I was at school by 9:15. I thought we were going to get right to it today, so I could leave by 11 to go run errands with Gunita and Will. True to Spanish form though, Aurora was in no hurry. When I got to the office, she wasn’t there, but came in a few minutes later. She started chatting it up with the other ladies in the office, we went and got a café (from a machine in the teacher’s lounge) and she chatted some more! She started to make my schedule, but there was a change of plans and we took a tour of the school instead and she introduced me to yet more people whose names I’ve already forgotten. When we got done with that about 45 minutes later, she started working on my schedule again. Two of the English teachers were free, so they became in charge of it. It took forever (about an hour) to iron everything out because they had to cross check class times between all the English teachers (I believe there are five…don’t quote me on that, though). I’ll be working from 9-2 Monday-Thursday with Fridays off. I think I’m going to see if I can sit in a Spanish class sometime; I’m interested to see how they teach their native language!

Even with all the earlier chatting, I was able to get out of there by 11:15. When I got back home, we left to go run a few errands: bank (for money to pay the rent), pay the rent and to Movistar to see about faster internet. Our landlord lives right by the bank. He’s such a cute old grandpa! (He’s 85; about five feet tall…his wife’s even shorter…, with a thin moustache). We each paid our 120€ and he took us up stairs to see some of his paintings and drawings. This guy is so talented! There were so many, the roomed was filled from top to bottom and that wasn’t even all of them! There were portraits of himself, his family, Mother Teresa, the Spanish royal family, Einstein, Bin Laden and Hitler just to name a few!

After, at Movistar, we inquired about getting wifi, because the internet Gunita has now is rather slow, which, as you can imagine, is not ideal for Skype. It turns out that for wifi it only costs 40€, split between the three of us…not bad considering Gunita pays 18 now. We still have to talk to the landlord, because it would require installing a phone line, but hopefully we’ll be able to get it soon (cross your fingers!)

Whelp, it’s almost two and I’m feeling like it's siesta time. Peace out!

Xoxo,

Court

The First Week

Editor’s Note: First of all, I want to say thank you to my good friend Kim, for helping me get the blog up and running (I’m not the most tech savvy person, as most of you are probably aware!) Second of all, I just want to apologize for the EXTREMELY long first post. I didn’t write anything while in Madrid, so this post is a collection of seven days worth of thoughts. This first real post was written between Sunday, September 26th and Tuesday, the 28th. Read as much or as little as you like! Pictures will soon follow…

Hello from Spain! For those of you who are unaware, I am spending a year in Socuéllamos (I’ll abbreviate it as Socu from now on), Spain, teaching English in CEIP Gerardo Martínez (the largest elementary school in Socu). (Socu is a town of about 13,000 people located in the region of Castilla-La Mancha. It’s about a two hour train ride from Madrid.) Technically, I’ll be an assistant to the English teachers, but saying the former is easier. I’ll be the only assistant at my school, and so far, I’m the only American here. I heard from several people that there is supposed to be an American guy coming to teach at the high school, but I haven’t seen him yet. I will be helping in all of the English classrooms, which means I’ll work with students ages 3-12. I’ve never worked with students that young before, so it’ll definitely be an interesting experience! I just hope the younger ones are all potty trained; I don’t do cleanups. Maybe in the future…

Continental flight 62 touched down in Madrid, Spain at 10:05AM (3:05AM Nebraska time) on Wednesday, September 22. The 21^st and 22^nd were probably the two longest days I’ve had since pulling all nighters back in my college days! My flight left from Kansas City at 2:17 on the 21^st. We landed in Newark at 6:00PM. I made sure to double check that I didn’t have to pick up my luggage before the connection…l wanted to avoid another disaster! Upon arriving in Newark, I met up with Haley, another auxiliar whom I’d been in contact with, who’ll be teaching in Villarrobledo, more or less 10 miles from my town. We met up and as turned out, she had met another auxiliar on her flight from Kentucky. His name is Matt and he’s teaching in Málaga. It was very comforting to have those two on my flight, knowing that I wouldn’t have to arrive in Madrid and go through customs on my own. Overall, the flight itself was alright (I always dread long flights like that, but it really wasn’t that bad). The only part I didn’t particularly enjoy was about two hours into the flight: We experienced quite a bit of turbulence; the plane swayed violently from side to side and bobbed up and down for 20 snail paced minutes. You know that feeling you get in your stomach sometimes when an elevator goes from a stopped position to a downward one? Or when a car goes kind of fast down a steep hill? That’s the feeling I had, except I was 35,000 feet in the air, going 550 miles per hour, with a cold, dark ocean beneath me. Not exactly warmest and fuzziest of feelings, right?

Upon disembarking from the plane, Haley and I headed for customs (Matt had yet another flight to catch to Málaga, so he went on ahead of us). It went very quick. I waited in line for about a minute, walked up to the window, the guy looked at my passport picture, then at me, then flipped to look at my visa, stamped my passport and that was it! Super easy!

After that, we went to wait for our luggage (thanks mom and dad for paying those fees!)

I brought two HUGE suitcases with me. They weighed in at 48.5lbs (just under the 50lb limit) and a whopping 60lbs (no wonder my arms are still sore from lugging those around!). Haley’s luggage appeared rather quickly; mine…not so much. Haley grabbed hers and I still hadn’t seen a trace of mine. We waited and waited (as each minute passed. my head filled with more and more dreadful thoughts. It would be just my luck have my luggage lost, but I said a prayer before we boarded the plane, so I like to think that helped!) Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, which in reality was about 15 or 20 minutes, my first suitcase appeared! I waited for it to chug along the luggage thing (what’s it called?) and when it was right in front of me, I mustered up all the strength I have within my body and yanked it off. The second one followed shortly after. My prayers were answered: we arrived safely AND both of my suitcases made it! Thank you, Lord, You are so good!

With our luggage in tow, we slowly (the word slowly can’t even begin to describe how long it took me…I don’t remember it being that bad last time I was in Spain, but man, it was quite a  battle, one in which my suitcases seemed determined to win…and they almost did, but in the end I prevailed! Oh victory, you are so sweet!) made our way out of the airport. The next time I do major traveling, someone PLEASE remind me to buy a suitcase that has wheels on all sides. That’s what Haley has and it was a breeze for her. We hailed a taxi and told the cabbie the name of our hostel (Luis Velez). He looked at our four gigantic suitcases (plus two backpacks) immediately said he would charge us extra, which we had no choice but to pay, since we were at his mercy.

In no time we were zooming past the lively streets of Madrid. I was enjoying the ride, looking at all the scenery, until a car tried to merge into our lane from the right and almost took us out! I was sitting behind the cabbie, but it looked like we were a couple inches from hitting! SCARY!!! At that, the cabbie laid on his horn, as they do best. It was a rather peaceful ride after that. We arrived at the hostel within 20 minutes and paid 45€ for the taxi (which, I’m pretty sure we paid double for…they always like milk you for whatever they can get).

From all the pictures I had seen, the hostel looked pretty nice. Fortunately, it had an elevator (thank goodness, because we were on the third floor!) For those of you who have never been to Europe or don’t know anything about European elevators, let me tell you: they are MISCOSCOPIC! We had to take the elevator separately and my luggage BARELY fit. It did though, so I guess that’s the only thing that matters. We checked in the front desk on the 3^rd floor, emailed our families to let them know we were alive and immediately took showers after that…we both felt gross.

The bathroom at the hostel was an experience in itself! For one thing, there was nothing above to hold the shower head in place, so it just kind of dangled there. What’s more, it was on a timed cycle, so when you pushed the water on, it automatically turned off after a minute (quite an annoyance, but I guess it deters those long showers takers, which is totally not me, by the way!) For another thing, we only stayed there days and yet they somehow ran out of toilet paper three different times, REALLY? Bathroom aside, I had nothing to complain about. We stayed in a double room, which was cleaned (or someone made my bed, at least) every day. Everyone was extremely friendly, except the guy on night duty (but I’m done complaining, so I won’t get into that).

Our days in Madrid were jam packed and a bit of a blur now. After we arrived on the 22^nd, we went right out and explored the city. It was probably about noon by the time we showered and got out of there. About two or three we stopped for tapas at a café. I ordered Manchego cheese and Haley ordered this chicken that was very good. While sitting at the café, someone taped me on the shoulder, said something like, “Is that yours on the ground?” I looked down and lo and behold, there was my passport! Thank goodness for such nice people, because otherwise, I would have never known I dropped it. I would have cried! After exploring a little more, we made our way back to the hostel for siesta (one of the many reasons I LOVE Spain). We woke up about eight and were thinking about what we wanted to do that night and there was a knock at the door. It was the activities director for the hostel (oddly enough, she’s American). She told us there was a flamenco show to be held that night for several of the hostels. It cost 13€, which included one drink, which we thought was a great deal, since flamenco shows can be very expensive. The show was held in this tiny underground room (as it turned out, there weren’t many people), which would have seemed a little shistey had we not been there for flamenco. It was my first flamenco show and it was AWESOME! Two women danced, one sang, one played the flute and a guy played this box/drum.

There was a pub crawl after that. Ten Euros for all you could drink for an hour at the first place, then one free drink at each of the next pubs. Quite a deal, I thought! At the first bar, we met up with one of Haley’s friends, Bogey, who is Bulgarian, whom she met while studying in Ciudad Real in 2008. Bogey brought along his roommate/Frenchman Benny. As a foursome we danced the night away and didn’t return to the hostel until about four the next morning!

The next day, Thursday, the 23^rd, was pretty chill (as I’m sure you can imagine!). We met up with two other auxiliares (Ashley and Tara) whom will be teaching in Haley’s town, Villarrobledo and went to the Thyssen museum, which is located very close to the Prado. The Thyssen features art from all over the world, whereas, the Prado focuses on Spain. It was fun, or as fun as a museum can be, at least. Another siesta came after that and we met Bogey again at another bar. I don’t remember what time we returned, but I don’t think it was as late as the previous night.

Friday was another laid back day. Haley and I went exploring again and found an open market. We both bought two scarves! If you know anything about me, you know what a scarf freak I am, so I was in Heaven! I so wanted to buy more, but I was strong! After purchasing the best accessories ever, we looked for a phone store, so I could buy a cell phone (Haley had already bought one, on Wednesday). I was going to wait until I got to Socu, but then I thought it would be a good idea to get one that day, so I would have it for the train, just in case something happened. After walking around for quite a while, we found a Movistar store, quite popular here. It didn’t take that along to pick out a phone, but the lady helping me took forever! I don’t know if she was new, or what, but we seriously waited like half an hour. It’s a pretty nice prepaid phone and it only cost 19€, so I guess the time spent waiting was worth it. Another siesta followed. Afterwards, we were trying to decide what to do. We both agreed we wanted something low key (checkout from the hostel was at 11). We went out said one glass of sangria and some tapas and were back by midnight.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early (8AM, which was extremely early compared to when I had been getting up). I had repacked the majority of my things the night before, (which wasn’t much, because I was afraid to take too many things out in fear they wouldn’t fit back in…thanks mom for doing such a stellar job packing!) We were all ready by about ten, so we went around the corner and got croissants for breakfast.

I was absolutely dreading the journey to Socu (darn that luggage!) Very slowly, I made my way outside. We hailed a taxi, and the driver heaved our luggage inside…again, what a tight fit! We made our way to the Atocha train station in about ten minutes. We weren’t charged extra for the luggage this time, but he did charge extra because we were going to the train station (apparently that and the airport are extra. Really?! I felt bad because I know I was holding Haley up, taking so long but she never said anything, I’m glad she’s so nice! Good thing we arrived about 11:15, because it took us a while to find the place where we needed to buy tickets. I believe we asked three different people and kept getting different answers. Finally, we were pointed in the right direction. Haley waited in line for the tickets, while I stayed back with the luggage (no sense in both of us dragging it along, right? There was a long line and it took about half an hour. While Haley stood in line, I was freaking out because I couldn’t find my passport. I had taken it out of my purse on Wednesday, after I dropped it and put it in one of the front zippered pockets of my suitcase. I finally found it after ten minutes of looking (thank you, St. Anthony!) I was SO relieved…crisis averted!

The only train to Socu/Villarrobledo was scheduled for 2:33, so we had a while to wait, not that either of us minded because we were wiped out. At about 2:15 we made our way down to the platform. As per usual, I was struggling with my luggage. This SUPER nice lady noticed and asked if she could help. Of course I said yes, so she took one of my bags and rolled it along (she had placed she small bag on top of mine). I expected her to take it down the escalator and give it back to me, but no, she kept rolling it along! It turned out that she was on the same train as us, with her stop being one before mine. She is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She helped us get our luggage up on the train and stored it away on the racks for the trip. Haley later told me that she had cut her had in the process and was bleeding. I felt so bad! She took the seat in front of us and we chatted a bit. I can’t even remember she name now, but she is from Mexico, lives in Madrid and was traveling out to the country to help her husband’s family harvest grapes (they’re huge out here right now, every day, we see truckloads of them). She even gave us her phone number and said the next time we’re in Madrid we could stay with her!

It took about two hours to get to Socu (I arrived at 4:24) and the secretary of the school, Aurora Noguerón picked me up, since the station is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at the apartment and I met Gunita, my roommate from Latvia. She is very nice; she helped me with the luggage. The first thing we did was go to the grocery store. I bought the basics: milk (I weighed the options…1. Whole milk, which I’m pretty sure is almost 100% fat, 2. Semi-fat free, which I kind of figured would be like 1 or 2% at home. WRONG! That’s the one I bought and there was still so much fat in there, it was way worse than drinking cream, 3. Fat free, which I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m sticking with from now on) juice, cereal, pasta, cheese, bread, etc. it only cost about 14€, that was a nice surprise…I guess stuff around here is rather cheap. We came home and I unpacked for about two hours while Gunita napped. I was so happy to get everything organized! We went out with her friends about 11. It was nice because I was able to meet several people: her friend Conchi picked us up with her car, then at the bar we met up with Catya (I have no idea if I’m spelling her name right!) and Jesús; at another bar I met Tomás and Javi (short for Javier) and a bunch of others I don’t remember now. We went to several different bars and the later it got, the crazier people were. At one point, this guy lifted up his shirt, while another guy proceeded to lick his chest. Gay? Drunk? Both? I don’t know…regardless, it was strange. We returned to the apartment sometime after four and I was exhausted!

Sunday was quite lazy. We met up with Jesús and another friend Teodora for tapas at two. We took a stroll around the city and returned about five. I did a load of laundry (which included hanging my clothes out on the clothes line (a new experience for me!) and called it a night. Nothing too exciting.

Monday, the 27^th, Gunita and I did some more shopping. I wanted to buy a hand towel, trashcan, bath mat, etc. Gunita went to work at 4 and I met up with Will, another American teaching at the high school. We explored the city a little bit and I was able to find my school.

Tuesday, the 28^th, I got up at 8:15 because I had planned with Aurora to come to school and meet everyone. I went to take a shower and it was freezing! I thought it would heat up if I waited a few minutes, but no, it only got colder! I can say, without a doubt, that that was the faster shower I’ve ever taken. I later asked Gunita and she said the hot water heater had been unplugged…definitely going to double check that from now on. That was the worst way to wake up!

I made my way to the school at 10:30. There was a man standing outside the gate and I asked for Aurora. I’m not really sure what I said, but he kind of looked at me like I was crazy, but it was clear he wouldn’t let me in unless he knew someone was expecting me. Aurora came out to meet me and he (she called him like the caretaker or something) let me in. Soccer balls were flying everywhere…the students were having recess at the time. Aurora showed me around, introduced me to the principal and several other teachers and the kids stared at me. At 11:30, Aurora said she had to go teach a class until one. I was like, “What, you’re the secretary, you teach too?” Apparently she teaches art as well. I followed her to her class. She first one was with eight-year-olds (I think). They were really cute! They kept looking at me and were like “who is she?” Aurora introduced me and they kept saying “Corni! Corni!” They discussed The Birth of Venus by Alessandro Something and that was it. Then another class of 6^th graders came in and they discussed the same thing. This class was a little rowdy, especially this girl name Rocío. She seemed to be quite the Chatty Kathy. At one point, I looked over and she was on the ground crawling between the desks, with her finger up to her lips, telling her classmates to be quiet. I just watched her because I wasn’t sure if I should tell Aurora, but soon after, she spotted her. She said “Rocío, come with me outside!” and they left. As soon as they walked out, the other students started talking to me all at once. I didn’t answer any of their questions because there were too many; they were all talking over each other. One o‘clock signaled the end of the school day. We went back to the office, Aurora grabbed her things and we left.

From there, we made our way to the bank, so I could open up an account. It didn’t take too long (thank goodness Aurora was with me!), all I needed was my passport, I signed several forms and VIOLA! I now have a Spanish bank account! I have to go back on Friday and pick up my debit card, which doubles as a student card, good for discounts at a lot of places, awesome, I know!

Will called this afternoon and said he had decided to move in with us, so now we have a full flat! We bought his stuff over about four and I was impressed that he only had one suitcase and a garment bag, but he is a guy, I guess. After he got all unpacked, we went to the store and we both got several things (milk was at the top of my list!)

Right now, we are waiting for Jesús to come by and then we are going out for drinks. I hope we don’t stay out too late, because I have to be at school at nine tomorrow, to iron out my schedule!

*

*

*

Uncle Michael, I love you so much, and I’m happy you’re not in any pain anymore. It’s comforting to know you’re watching over all of us and that one day we’ll see you again, but I’ll miss you for the rest of my life!

Xoxo,

Court