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
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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…
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Second to last week at Soto
Highlights from this week:
1. Running on the beach with Mireille Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It is one of the most amazing things to run at sunset along the beach. On a clear night we can see the Gibraltar, Africa, the moon and the stars...
2. Watching my year six students play in the lunch time football championship game. The Dustpan Cleaners took on the Beach Boys. They are amazing player. Some of them are more modest than others, I saw a few brushing off their shoulders and mock shinning each other's shoes. I couldn't help but laugh
3. Starting to teach my two dimensional shapes unit in math and having everyone understand everyone! I didn't have to split my class up into three ability groups, amazing. On Monday I introduced all of the common 2D shapes and they had to draw them in their notebooks. Tuesday I used a lesson that I had designed for my fifth grade class during methods on triangles. I talked about the importance of learning about triangles, what professions deal with triangles and where can we find triangles in the real world. We also identified different types of triangles. Yesterday I taped a 2D shape on the backs of all of the students and they had to go around the room asking yes or no questions about their shapes properties to figure out what shape they were. Today I introduced using a protractor and measuring angles, something I always found difficult. However, once again, all of the students were successful after taking notes on the "four easy steps" to identify an angle. =] Tomorrow we will have our second weekly "Math Game." As introduced by my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Tolar at Bamber Valley Elementary school. The students bet money on whether they will answer math questions correctly and add or subtract money from their team's total.
4. Receiving the final drafts of my informal and formal letters, from all of the students - finally!
5. Teaching the loves and loathes lesson on Wednesday for the extended writing students. These were very entertaining! I also made friends with a year five student named Mario, he told me he loves American Football (first student I have found to say this) unfortunately, he told me he hates the Vikings haha. Now I keep rubbing it in his face that they are doing well. =]
6. Playing 40/40 or Kick the Can with my Intercultural group on Wednesday afternoon. I really enjoy getting to know some of the other primary students, they are all so great! I really am going to miss them, a lot...kind of dreading it.
7. Dancing with Brittany's P1 class during Mireille's PE class. I introduced them to the song "Hop Hop Stop" (From Cleveland - hello all) they loved it...and I have it on video tape.
8. Having Mireille teach me how to drive a 5 speed manual car, in Spain - yikes. I drove all the way from Marbella to Sotogrande after school today. I am now the MASTER of round - a - bouts, driving a manual in the states now will be a breeze. However, it was slightly embarrassing when I stalled at the toll booth, haha...I had a good recovery thought, it's alright. No worries Mom and Dad, I am still in one piece and Mireille is too ;)
9. Asking which one of my students was missing their jumper (aka sweatshirt) and having Alex tell me to give it to Vicky to smell it, and then she would know whose it was. She smelled it, I gagged, and she told me she thought it was Miguel's. HAHAHA
10. Saturday we travel to MADRID! yes
1. Running on the beach with Mireille Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It is one of the most amazing things to run at sunset along the beach. On a clear night we can see the Gibraltar, Africa, the moon and the stars...
2. Watching my year six students play in the lunch time football championship game. The Dustpan Cleaners took on the Beach Boys. They are amazing player. Some of them are more modest than others, I saw a few brushing off their shoulders and mock shinning each other's shoes. I couldn't help but laugh
3. Starting to teach my two dimensional shapes unit in math and having everyone understand everyone! I didn't have to split my class up into three ability groups, amazing. On Monday I introduced all of the common 2D shapes and they had to draw them in their notebooks. Tuesday I used a lesson that I had designed for my fifth grade class during methods on triangles. I talked about the importance of learning about triangles, what professions deal with triangles and where can we find triangles in the real world. We also identified different types of triangles. Yesterday I taped a 2D shape on the backs of all of the students and they had to go around the room asking yes or no questions about their shapes properties to figure out what shape they were. Today I introduced using a protractor and measuring angles, something I always found difficult. However, once again, all of the students were successful after taking notes on the "four easy steps" to identify an angle. =] Tomorrow we will have our second weekly "Math Game." As introduced by my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Tolar at Bamber Valley Elementary school. The students bet money on whether they will answer math questions correctly and add or subtract money from their team's total.
4. Receiving the final drafts of my informal and formal letters, from all of the students - finally!
5. Teaching the loves and loathes lesson on Wednesday for the extended writing students. These were very entertaining! I also made friends with a year five student named Mario, he told me he loves American Football (first student I have found to say this) unfortunately, he told me he hates the Vikings haha. Now I keep rubbing it in his face that they are doing well. =]
6. Playing 40/40 or Kick the Can with my Intercultural group on Wednesday afternoon. I really enjoy getting to know some of the other primary students, they are all so great! I really am going to miss them, a lot...kind of dreading it.
7. Dancing with Brittany's P1 class during Mireille's PE class. I introduced them to the song "Hop Hop Stop" (From Cleveland - hello all) they loved it...and I have it on video tape.
8. Having Mireille teach me how to drive a 5 speed manual car, in Spain - yikes. I drove all the way from Marbella to Sotogrande after school today. I am now the MASTER of round - a - bouts, driving a manual in the states now will be a breeze. However, it was slightly embarrassing when I stalled at the toll booth, haha...I had a good recovery thought, it's alright. No worries Mom and Dad, I am still in one piece and Mireille is too ;)
9. Asking which one of my students was missing their jumper (aka sweatshirt) and having Alex tell me to give it to Vicky to smell it, and then she would know whose it was. She smelled it, I gagged, and she told me she thought it was Miguel's. HAHAHA
10. Saturday we travel to MADRID! yes
Monday, December 1, 2008
Saturday and Sunday
Saturday I continued to work on some homework and Brittany and I cleaned the house. Around 1 o’clock Mireille came to the house and picked up Dawn, Brittany and I. We made our way to the school to check out the Christmas bazaar. It was packed! There were a whole bunch of food stands and all of my year 6 students were trying to get me to buy their food. I ended up having a green chicken curry dish. It was really good, but very spicy! Student choirs were singing Christmas songs, Santa Claus was there, and in the gymnasium there were stands everywhere with crafts, jewelry and food. I didn’t end up buying anything because I was warned ahead of time that everything was overpriced. However, just like the Halloween party, the Christmas bazaar was a huge event, and the school once again had a very good turnout of students, teachers and parents. Way to go SIS.
After the bazzar we packed up our things at the house to get ready for the week in Estapona. In “Pona” we went to the Mercadona – a supermarket – and stocked up on food. I also needed new shampoo and other items etc. We were all surprised at how expensive Herbal Essences is here…=]
At night we were invited to Lee’s house (Dawn’s cooperating teacher) for dinner. He made spaghetti with Chicken and mushroom sauce. It was really nice not to have to cook or go out for dinner. After dinner we went out to the port. When returning to MN I think I will find a whole new respect for our smoking ban. At the end of the night every article of clothing reeks of smoke…gross.
Sunday was a day to relax, sleep, watch movies, and prepare for my week. I have been full time at SIS for a total of five days now, and I will be teaching full time again this whole week. I also finished another standard, yes…one left.
After the bazzar we packed up our things at the house to get ready for the week in Estapona. In “Pona” we went to the Mercadona – a supermarket – and stocked up on food. I also needed new shampoo and other items etc. We were all surprised at how expensive Herbal Essences is here…=]
At night we were invited to Lee’s house (Dawn’s cooperating teacher) for dinner. He made spaghetti with Chicken and mushroom sauce. It was really nice not to have to cook or go out for dinner. After dinner we went out to the port. When returning to MN I think I will find a whole new respect for our smoking ban. At the end of the night every article of clothing reeks of smoke…gross.
Sunday was a day to relax, sleep, watch movies, and prepare for my week. I have been full time at SIS for a total of five days now, and I will be teaching full time again this whole week. I also finished another standard, yes…one left.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)