Last Weekend In Espana

The last weekend was spent with Mireille and Brittany in Pona. We went out to a nice seafood restaurant, yes that's right - seafood. I had an amazing steak, but was proud to say that I tried shrimp, crab and some other mystery fish. It was actually pretty good.

We met up with some of the other teachers down at the port later that night for one last get together.

Sunday was a day to pack and clean the house. The cab gave us a little scare when it was 30 min late. Good thing we called and told it to come 30 earlier than the original time. Missing an international flight would be a very bad thing. It picked us up around 3:00AM. Most of us just stayed up the whole night so we could get some sleep on the plane.

Driving from Sotogrande to the airport in Malaga was one of the weirdest feelings. It was the definition of bittersweet. I was very excited to get back home to the states and see my friends and family etc. However I was so sad to leave, I almost felt sick to my stomach. I had never made so many connections with people I knew I may never see again -- the staff and students. In the past I had taken vacations over seas with my family, but you don't make connections. Or you may visit family away from home, but because they're family you know you will see them again sometime in the future. I could not say the same about the people at SIS.

Before when I thought about the location of Spain I said to myself, it’s not that far away...just across the ocean. Ha oh no, it may not seem that far, but with our flight schedule it was definitely a solid 24 hours of traveling. Sotogrande to Malaga, Malaga to NY (terrible airport), NY to Chicago and Chicago to Minneapolis…the cold air getting off the plane took my breath away, welcome home =]

Friday

Last day at SIS

This morning we started the day by finishing up our last two debates. They were even better than yesterday! One of the debates was about whether or not students should be allowed "mobiles" in school. They really got into it =].

For my final math lesson we played "the math game" and used a compass to create Christmas ornaments. The students cut out their designs and I put them thought the laminator...they turned out really well.

In the afternoon the students finished up some art and we had a short goodbye party. I passed out my lollipops and the students gave me a booklet of memories created by the students and a giant card.

I was pretty sad my last day. Some of the students were pretty upset too...there were a few tears =[

I am really going to miss the staff and students at the school, they really were amazing.

After school we went to paddle for our final Friday of play. It was raining so we didn't get a lot of playing in, but it was nice to spend a few final hours chatting with some of the staff in the clubhouse. We also got job offers from Chris Charleson to come back and work at SIS, sweet!

Thursday

Last night we saw the senior theater production "Fugee" short for refugee. I thought the students did a very good job. It was very intense and sent a strong message.

Today the students started their debates! I got some of the debates on tape and I hope to get a hold of the recording. The students needed to have an opening statement (mostly memorized) points of argument and then attempt to debate their opponents arguments. For the most part, I thought they did a wonderful job.

After school today Brittany and I stayed after and made some large signs/thank you cards for our students. I also drove Mireille's new rental car - a picante - to the Lidle market. We got some suckers "lollypops" for our students and I got Ms. Lisa some flowers and a card.
I cannot believe that tomorrow will be my last day...

The Final Crazy Wednesday

This morning the students had PE and Spanish. After these two lessons I taught a lesson on children in conflict. Instead of looking at evacuees and children during WWII, I talked about children that are currently in conflict: child soldiers. I found a website called “Invisible Children,” it was very interesting. Three college students from California traveled to Africa to find information about children in conflict. The created a documentary about child soldiers in Uganda. I was eager to learn more about the site and a program they started called the bracelet campaign. Bracelets made out of reed and recycled wire by the Uganda people are sold to the United States. The money goes children in families in need. I thought this might be a very cool project for the year six students next year during their unit of inquiry. They could see if they could actually order some of the bracelets. With each bracelet is a short film about the person that made it. The bracelets also symbolize different things. The symbolism of the bracelets combined with the conflict issue would fit perfectly with the POI conflict unit. I suggested this to Ms. Lisa. I might even see if I can get involved and see if I could get SEA to sponsor an event.

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

In the afternoon I taught a math lesson on circles and using a compass. The students created different size circles for their assignment by measuring a radius or diameter. I also asked them to create triangles within the circles and they needed to measure the angle with a protractor.

The next lesson was with my extended writing group. I really have enjoyed working with this group and teaching writing lessons, something I thought I’d never like. Today I asked the students to create a list on their mini whiteboards of words they like, and word they don’t like…not the meaning of the word, but how it sounds. I did a similar activity with Jill Potts and my education methods class last spring. On the SMART board I showed an example of what I wanted the students to do. Under words I like I had shenanigans, falafel, rubbish and kabob. I explained that these were all funny words and I like how they sound. Under words that I don’t like I had moist, spouse, and fork.

The students had a lot of fun creating lists of their own. The high level of excitement in the room about a writing activity was surprising. The students’ energy level made it fun and gave me confidence. As a class we created a big list on the whiteboard with all of our favorite and not so favorite words. I also told the students that they could write words in other languages, which was really neat. I think we had German, English, Danish, Spanish, and French. This is something you would not be able to do in the states.

After the writing activity I was supposed to teach my last intercultural lesson on Chefcharon, the Moroccan orphanage supported by SIS. Instead I joined with two other teachers and we made Holiday cards with a candle on the front. Mrs. Hartland explained that different cultures and religions do not all celebrate the same holiday at this time of year, but most of them have a symbol of light. She said this was her way of cheating by making Christmas cards, but still tying in the multi-cultural theme. The students were also encouraged to write Merry Christmas or Happy New Year in more than one language on their card.

In the past, Mrs. Harland was an art teacher, this was obvious today when she was explaining to the students how to make the card. It was hilarious, she was so clear, and seemed to be speaking to them as if they were idiots. But she swore that at least one of the students would do it wrong. Ms. Claire and I were rolling laughing. I wish I would have had it on tape.

“Ok now children this is how you are going to make your card. You are going to get one piece of tag board paper, now two…one.

Then you are going to fold it in half like a book, make sure your corners are together. You want your card with the binding on the left side like a book. See watch, I’m going to take my card, go sit down and read a book. First I need to open my book (she closes her eyes) I reach down and lift the corner up, see. Now I can open my book. If I had it with the binding on the right side I would sit down to open my book, try and lift up the corner and oop, oops (she pulls at the folded corner) look, it won’t open.

The next thing you are going to do is get a stencil of a candle. This is a s-t-e-n-c-i-l, you do not cut the stencil, you only trace it…so you shouldn’t have scissors anywhere near the stencil! (Claire and I start laughing)

So you are going to want to place the stencil on your card and press it down firmly with your fingers. She holds up her left hand, what do I do with this hand? (“You hold then stencil” – students) She hold up her right hand, what do I do with this hand? (“You trace the candle” – the students). Right, now see how firmly I’m pressing down so the stencil doesn’t move, my fingertips turn a little white. You might have to pick up your hand and move it so you can trace all the way around the candle but you should already have some marks drawn to help you line it up again if the stencil moves.

Ok no you are going to glue on the blue paper for the candle. Not green, not red. Because if you use green you will have red holly leaves or blue berries. The candle needs to be blue. (Claire turns to me, smiles and whispers, so much for creativity with this card) Next you can cut out the candle on the front flap of the card. And when you cut, I know your thinking – why does she need to talk to us about how to cut – but many students and some adults do not know how to cut properly. When you cut you turn the paper not the scissors. She pretends to cut out the card by turning the scissors and cutting toward her and twisting her arm into multiple uncomfortable positions to prove a point. See all you need to do is turn the paper. Watch, I’m cutting, I’m cutting and oop – look I’m at the and of the line, now I must turn the paper and continue cutting. I’m cutting, I’m cutting and oop, I’m at the end again, I must do what? Turn the paper.

Next you need some holly leaves, we will have stencils for this two and you need two leaves. You glue the leaves at the end of the candle. Then you need three berries, not two, not four. When you glue things they should be in odd numbers – it looks better. Then you have your card.

She explains that somebody will not have the card facing the right way; it will have the binding on the right. I thought, no way, no way…but sure enough one student had the binding on the wrong side and another student cut out both layers of the candle so there wasn’t a background to write a message on, perfect.
Despite the two mistakes most of the cards turned out really well, I even got to make one!

Final Blogs

I'm back in the states!

For those of you that have been loyal blog followers, thank you. I'm glad you have enjoyed my stories and pictures. As you may have noticed I had a difficult time keeping up with the blogs the last two weeks due to increased lesson planning and responsibility at school. However, I still want to publish some blogs about what I did during my final days in Spain. Tomorrow morning I am leaving early to go snowboarding for a few days in Colorado, but hopefully when I will return I will post the final blogs...so check again then...have a Merry Christmas

Tuesday - A day in Estepona

Today Brittany, Mireille and I went to Estepona. We enjoyed the nice weather, found another kabob place – we are kind of obsessed now – and did some gift shopping. The three of us have no fun together...as you can see from the pictures

MADRID

Just got back from our CRAZY trip to Madrid!

The adventure started out by leaving Estapona around 5:30 in the morning. We drove Mireille’s rented car one hour to the Malaga airport. When we got there, there was some confusion with where the train station was. Mireille talked to the rental car lady and she said that the train station was right by the airport, false! We ran around the airport parking lot and surrounding area looking for a train station. We found an abandoned train station close by, but it just didn’t seem right. It was dark, and nobody was there…just didn’t feel right. Finally we called Tim, who was dropping Danny off at the train station and asked him where it was. He said that we would need to take a cab to get to the train station. It was at least five minutes away from the airport by car…great, our train was set to leave at 7:10 and it was about 6:50.

We flagged down a taxi, however, we needed two taxi’s so we waited for what seemed like an hour for another taxi to come. Finally, the taxi driver just agreed to drive all of us in his car to the train station. We arrived at the train station at 7:00. As I raced out of the car, I started throwing bags from the trunk out onto the street as we ran, literally, into the train station. We found out our platform, but our tickets were just paper receipts…we needed to collect the actual ticket from a machine before getting through the gates. I’m sure it was quite a site, us running through an empty, dark, train station. Tim was standing in the lobby smiling and witnessing the madness. He said calmly, “uh your train is blinking red, salida imediamente.” As the tickets printed one by one through the machine, I grabbed one and Lee just told me to go. I started running through the gates. It was 7:08, and they had shut the gates. The train was still there…but we weren’t allowed to get on. Perfect. After talking with customer service they said that we could pay 20% and go on the 9 o’clock train, there were still a few openings. However, when we went to book out tickets, no openings showed up. We were now pushed back to the 11 o’clock train, and had to pay extra to travel business class. There was one perk to this, while waiting for the train we were allowed to stay in the Sala business class club where we had access to free juice/coffee and snacks. We played some cards, listened to music and read our travel books on Spain. The Sala club had a huge glass window that overlooked the platforms, and we found it entertaining to watch a man and his wife come late to the 9 o’clock train and try to convince the guards that they should be let on. Deshavu. We felt better knowing we weren’t the only ones who missed our train, horrible I know.

At 11:00 we were finally on the train headed for Madrid. We arrived two and a half hours later. At the train station we bought some metro passes and checked in to our hostal for the first night. It wasn’t in the greatest location, because we waited too late to book the rooms. We forgot that Monday was a Spanish holiday. But it wasn’t too bad because the metro station was only 6 blocks away.

We showered up at the hostal, but had to wait for Dawn to call. She had been traveling in Germany and was going to meet us in Madrid. I got a call from her, she was at the airport and crying. It was pretty scary, but apparently they had lost her luggage and she didn’t know how to find us. Brittany and Mireille walked back to the metro and took it to the airport to pick her up. Annika and I waited at the hostal, relaxed and listened to some music. Two hours later everyone returned, we had some snacks and then headed back out to the metro to go out for the night. Wearing heals was a bad idea.

Mireille, Annika, Brittany, Dawn and I met up with Lee and his friend Courtney in downtown Madrid. We hit up a couple of places for tapas and they were amazing!
Stayed up pretty late, enjoyed the night and then returned to the hostal. The next day we got up early and packed up. We took the metro downtown to try and find “El Rostro” (a market). It was pretty interesting. There was books, leggings, spices, jewelry, underwear, boots, corduroy pants, basically all your necessary daily items =]. Madrit was a little difficult to fully embrace due to the rain. There were people everywhere, but you couldn’t see them…all you could see was a sea of umbrellas. Have you ever tried to walk somewhere when there is a traffic jam not from people but from umbrellas, not a fan. After the market we walked around the town and then found some food. We stopped at a restaurant where I had patatas con salsa brava and scrambled eggs with ham. Our table was right next to the window to the main street where the menu for the restaurant was located. We were entertained by people watching – I mean people looking at us and our food, not us looking at them. After a while, I decided that I should start convincing the people on the street that the place we were at was a good restaurant and the food was delicious. This was accomplished by holding up a spoonful of my food, smiling at the people on the streets, giving thumbs up and then eating it. I got a few weird looks, but an old man with a grey umbrella laughed and found it pretty entertaining. Don’t judge, it was raining and we were bored. =]

After lunch Mireille, Brittany and I walked around the town and Dawn and Annika tried to find a church/museum to go in. Later that night we ate fast food kebobs and falafels, they were so good. Kebobs are Turkish and are sometimes called shawarmas. It is pita bread filled with chicken or pork, lettuce, tomato, and a dill and red sauce. If you go to Messads in the Mankato mall, you can get something similar…highly recommended.

When we got back to the hotel, we found out that Dawn and Annika were locked out of their room. This weekend just keeps getting better. Of course the little old lady that runs the hostel does not have a copy of the key. I honestly don’t know where she would even make a copy, the keys looked like they were from WWII. The only possible way to get in after she stripped the bolts on the door was to break it down. She was freaking out (in Spanish) because apparently she just did that last week to a different room and had to pay 300 Euros. Another way would be for someone to go from Lee’s balcony over the edge of a seven story ledge into the balcony of the locked room. So Lee decides to do it as we were all freaking out and telling him not to. He got to the other balcony safely and opened the room door. Mireille, Brittany and I played some cards and then went out again before going to bed to enjoy our final hours in Madrid before returning home.

We did NOT miss the train on the way home, we were a good 1.5 hours early…