email from January

Hey all! It's been shamefully two months since my last writing.(or for some of you this is the first time you are getting my writings) This one is really long to make up for it.... Sorry, I've been wanting to write, but have been caught up in the whirlwind of thoughts and email communications and nerves that I've been experiencing because I've been deciding to leave Madrid.

See, around the end of November, and middle of December I began to feel very stuck, unsatisfied and unhealthy with my life here - i didn't like the way my jobs, my apartment, the city, my schedule was making me feel: stuck, very lonely, and like a bad person for resenting what I had, but not being able to help it. And, there was this tiny voice inside of me that kept saying - "this place isn't right for you! You don't want to be here!" Which was a bit nerve-wracking since I had spent the last 4 months making Madrid into my home, and I don't know anything else. Where else could I go? How else could I support myself except by teaching English?

With these thoughts swirling around my head, I left for Alicante for Christmas, and then Belgium for new years.

Alicante was fun. It's a small city located on the south west coast of Spain. I spent Christmas weekend there with my roommate and her family. Her parents and brother only speak English, so that made for a fun challenge. I swear, just in these three days of lots of Spanish, my Spanish and my confidence with the language improved a lot. The last day I was there, Lara had already left so it was just me and her spanish speaking parents. After lunch, they explained to me for an hour about the different agriculture products in Spain and the regions - and I understood everything! Definitely a learning benchmark =) Other highlights from my Spanish Christmas: homemaid authentic paella cooked by Lara's mom; getting to wake up and go for runs on the beach (how I missed the water!!!); a traditional marisco (seafood) christmas dinner of steamed crabs, lobster, and shrimp; speaking to Lara in English at the Christmas dinner about people present at the dinner table because no one else could understand us (I'd always wondered what it was like to be the two people who were speaking the language no one else understood. Now I've done it! And yes, those people are probably talking about you); Lara's mom teaching me how to cook a Spanish Omlette (Spain loves their potatoes and oil); learning (again in spanish) how to open walnets using two fingers from one hand, and the fist of the other. All in all, it was a lovely relaxing, food, culture, and Spanish filled weekend =)

I got back to my apartment in Madrid from Alicante at 2:30am(plane delay)... then went back to the airport at 2pm the next day with my friend Christine to fly to Belgium for the week.

Belgium was also a fantastic experience. We did couch surfers, meaning instead of staying and paying for hostels, we arranged ahead of time to stay at the homes of strangers-soon to be friends. I know this may sound sketchy, but it really isn't so bad. The couchsurfing website is really well run. You have a profile that has all the information you would basically put on your facebook page, you can verify your location and identity, couchsurfing keeps track of all communication sent on the website, and hosts/surfers can put review of each other online after they have stayed/hosted there. It's hard not to at least see if you can trust someone who's picture you can see, favorite quotes you can read, location is verified, and has 25 reviews of satisfied couch surfers who have stayed with him/her before. We stayed with 4 different hosts in Belgium All of them were lovely, and made our stay in Belgium better. I would couch surf again in a second.

Our first hosts were a couple living in Ghent. The guy was Belgian (from Ghent) and the girl was from Indonesia. They had met through couch surfing when the guy was traveling around Asia for a year. They were sooo nice! They picked us up from the train station, gave us a map of brugges to explore, took us out for delicious Belgian beers and fries (we took them out to dinner the next night). We had our own room with separate beds. It was the best first couchsurfing experience we could have asked for. We stayed there three evenings in general.

During the day, Christie and I explored Brugges and Brussels. Brugges has to be one of the most picturesque European little cities in Europe. It's very beautiful. It has lots of canals, and architecture that reminded me of San Francisco townhouses - except older and made out of stone. I've never seen SO MANY chocolate shops in one town in my life - there was literally one every three shops. Mmmm delicious. We went on a brewery tour, which was cool, but a bit difficult to understand, and FREEZING, but came with a complimentary beer afterwards (yum). We ate mussels and french fries for lunch - it came in a bucket and is the traditional food of Belgium (double yum), We walked around the Brugges christmas market with cups of steaming Gludeken in hand (mulled wine - love at first sip. Especially for Christy), and we went to the best little pub I have ever been too. It was soo adorable and cozy, and had about 300 belgian beers to choose from. All were between 2.50-4.50 euros (well priced I think) and would come with a plate of good cubes cheese when you ordered them. The place was so full, that we ended up having to share a table for four - not that we minded. We sat with a couple from Argentina who were studying abroad in Padua Italy. I love Europe and it's multi-culturalness =)

Brussels, which we explored the next day, was also lovely. We only stayed around the center of the city. Apparently the rest of it isn't too much to look at. But the architecture!!! So beautiful. Brussels had a HUGE christmas market that was blocks full of small wooden stands selling their wares, and foods, and such. Many booths full of huge cheese blocks, other booths full of sausages of sizes and colors, others with really good jams, others with incense - there was a lot! And you never knew if they were going to speak dutch or french at you. Normally they started with French, and ended up speaking English (again - I LOVE Europe and it's multi-culturalness). We didn't buy much at the market, but it was so much fun to look at everything (cups of hot wine in hand of course... have i mentioned i also love Europe's lax alcohol attitude?)

After the market, we wandered a bit and ended up at the famous mankenpis (sp wrong) statue - a statue/fountain of a little belgian boy peeing into the fountain's pool. It's only about 2.5 feet high, surrounded by tourists, and very funny. Just across from that was the pub we wanted to go too - called the puppetry pub of all things! It was covered in marionettes (sort of creepily so), and statue replicas of the makenpis dressed up in different costumes from around the world and eras. So funny. Again this pub had hundreds of beers to chose from. All strong, all delicious. mmmm. After beers, we split some famous fries to share, and went back to our hosts.

The next day we explored Ghent - which is very beautiful again, and it definitely the city I would choose to live in if I lived in Belgium. It was pretty similar to Brugges, but bigger. We walked around for hours. And then laid by the canal for about thirty minutes, tired, but enjoying the ambiance. Some tourists took pictures of us. We had our big winter coats on, laying on the side of the canal. Not something you see much i guess. Later that day, we took the train to Leuven - a less known city in Belgium and met our second host: a 23 year old Spanish dude from Segovia studying Education in Leuven named Jose. Jose was very nice, very hospitibal, but sort of shy. Most of the time we spent in Leuven, he stayed in doors, and we just wandered the city by ourselves. There isn't too much to say about Leuven. It's a pleasant city, smaller than Ghent, not as picturesque as the others we'd been to, but still very pleasant to wander. I'd try to engage him in conversation (english and spanish, and it would end after a couple of sentences.) We spent New Years with him though. It was very international. We went out for Italian food (weirdly enough - i had a lot of italian food in belgium. I haven't had it once in my months in Spain, but had it 4 times in Belgium). The dinner company was from China, India, El Salvador, Spain, Belgium, and America. This is also who we brought in the new year with two, standing in a crowded Belgian Square. Afterwards, we danced the night away at a Belgian gay discotech (why not?!). It was definitely my most international New Years by far. Though i sort of missed the Hawaiian house parties of yesteryears.

Christy went home, and I alone went to my next host - a couple again. This time in Mechelen. The girl was from East Germany (the wall had come down when she was one. She was currently studying to be an interpreter. Very interesting profession) and the guy was from Belgium(his family had owned a bakery outside of Brussels for most of his life growing up, he has three brothers.. interesting stories! But.. I'm going to keep this writing to my story because it's already long enough). This couple was So nice! The first night I showed up to them making me dinner- spegetti with sauce cooked by Fred's mom - really good! Then they drove me to Brussels that evening so I could see the atomium (which is an atom sculpture like the size of the eiffel tower! I had no idea how tall it would be!) And then we went to a not much to look at, but totally local pub - Fred's favorite where he knows everyone by name. Naturally I loved it. The next morning we had a huge breakfast spread of bread and different types of jams (they have a honey jam and a jam that tastes like gingerbread in Belgium). i also made them Egg-in-the-hole's, which they had never had before and really liked. It was really cold those days, so I didn't really leave their apartment much - just caught up on emails, watched their adorable cats, slept, watched movies, ate. It was a nice change after spending the last five days wandering outside all day. One movie we watched was called Good morning Lenin - about a boy and his mom and their relationship during the fall of the Berlin wall. We watched it in German with English subtitles - What great company to watch that sort of movie. They kept commenting about what was accurate, what wasn't, etc.

My last night in Belgium I spent in Antwerp at the apartment of this Italian guy named Luca in his company and his roommates. Oh they were so funny - had me laughing the whole time. Luca was very italian. He loves old Italian movies, would say romantic Italian things like, "let's go together and watch the stars," and he cooked me Italian food (more italian but by an Italian!) He was nice enough to walk around and show me the city even though he's seen it all before and showed hundreds of surfers he's hosted the city before. Antwerp is very picturesque, but again, kind of similar to the others. There is this one street that totally looks like castles. And apparently it has quite the art scene. I'm still trying to figure out if Luca (who is from Naples) is involved in the Mob or not. He and his roommate kept joking about it, and I have a sneaking suspicion they might be a bit based on truth. Anyway, very funny time, very memorable and nice once again.

couchsurfing, I think, is awesome.

I went back to Madrid the next day, and had about 5 days off before I had to start classes again. What my travels had taught me, in addition to being fun, was that yes - I want a change. I want to travel more. I don't want to be stuck in Madrid. Not to mention my largest most lucrative job is ending at the end of February, so I'd need to find more work, and I tried, but no one is really hiring. So, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, but I was certain I needed change, and I started researching my options - wwoofing (working on Organic farms,) which led me to another site called HelpXchange which has thousands of posts of people looking for help on farms, hostels, au pairing, house maintenance, animal caretaking - everything in exchange for room and board. So that's what i've decided to do! I'm going to travel around Spain first working at different places for a few weeks to a few months at a time, earning money where I can, but not spending much because my room and board will be taken care of =) I have about 2000 euros to do this on, and I'll figure it out as I go along. My first place i'm staying sounds lovely - here is the link.www.lacasadelviento.com I am going the beginning of March, and staying until probably sometime in April. Then I'll figure out what to do next. I really want to live with an all spanish speaking family for a couple of months, so I'm looking and contacting hosts for that sort of opportunity as welll. i'm also looking into options to help out at and stay free at a hostel over the summer, probably in Greece or Italy.

I've been much happier since I've made this decision to leave Madrid. I'm so excited to meet new people, learn some gardening skills, be outdoors again, see other parts of Spain and Europe! 6i know I'm doing the right thing. Madrid is a lovely place, and maybe I'll come back and teach again in the fall. I have no idea right now. But if I do, I'm going to get an apartment closer to the center, and find jobs that are more block hours and conversational. That would make a big difference I think in comparison to the place I'm living and places I'm working now. Well... we shall see what the future will bring. Wish me luck! Cus I'm nervous, excited, and needing it.

love you and talk to you soon!


love you

Becca

Emails from September

EMAIL September 4 2010 A WEEK LATER

So much has happened since my last long email! I went to Toledo, I went to Granada, and I moved into my new apartment which I will be living in for the next four weeks.

So first thing is first: Toledo. Picture a little midevil city on a hill with winding cobble streets, no modern facades, and with a Cathedral about the size of the Maui Arts and Cultural center - that would be Toledo. It has a really cool history (seriously. Look it up) It was Jewish for centuries, taken by the moors in about 900ad, and it was the first city to be retaken by the Spanish in 1200 or something. Today, it is a town that lives off of tourism and damasce (aka knife making and gold inlaying?) The streets are filled with tourist shops full of swords. Usually the store has a night in full armor set up too, holding a sign that says "no tocar" which means do not touch. To give you an idea of what sort of swords I'm talking about, Toledo was apparently where all the lord of the ring swords/bow and arrows were made for the movies. Consequently, in addition to really cool antiquity swords and cooking knives, the stores also had tons of "buy your own" versions of Lord of the Ring swords, as well as excalibur knock offs, highlander, swords from comic books, movies....basically, Toledo is a nerds dream. Really, I got this slightly nerdie boy Australian named Ben to come check out the city with me on Saturday - I swear he made me go into every sword store he saw, and he knew which ones came from what stories. It was hilarious; he was so excited about them! Of course he couldn't touch any of them, so I guess in that way Toledo is also a nerd's nightmare - all this cool stuff that you don't get to play with. Other than that, all you need to know about Toledo is that you walk uphill a lot, and that there are tons of shops run by Nuns that sell home made marzipan. (Yes parents. I know you love Marzipan. I ate some in honor of you. Not bad stuff). It's also one of the coolest places to walk around at night. All the tourists are gone, everything looks and feels old-- I found myself imagining I was back in the 13th century. Very cool.

Oh yeah, one more funny Toledo story. My second night there, Sunday evening. I ended up at a secret pool table at an Irish pub, and by secret I mean the bar tender at first denied he had one... and then surreptitiously let us up stars after we'd hung out there for a bit. (Us is me and another Aussie from the hostel i was staying at. He's the one who wanted to play pool. Aussies are EVERYWHERE in Spain right now. They came over for the La Tomatina festival outside of Valencia, a festival where they dump truckloads of tomatoes on a crowd of people and let them go wild. Apparently the turn out for this festival was at least half Aussie). Anyway, we went upstairs to the secret pool table and found an two english blokes and a guy from Scotland. It was like I wasn't even in Spain anymore. Also, the pool table was ridiculously bad - you needed to use a mini cue most of the time because the table was positioned to close to the table to use a full sized one. The whole thing definitely ranked high on my list of ridiculous experiences.

Moving on: Granada - what a cool city. It was a total last minute decision to go at all. I'm really glad I did. I get off the bus in Granada, and thought it loked kinda like Madrid but with more banks. But then I had turn up this side street to find my hostel - that street? (and others of course) I felt like I might as well be in Morocco. It was tiny little lined with little Hungarian tea shops, and bohemian clothing shops, and hookah bars. The street itself was so cobbled I ended carrying my wheeling suitcase cus it was easier. Very unexpected! I found out during my stay (and by reading Rick Steves) that Granada is the best preserved Muslim city in Spain. Unlike Toledo, which was the first city to be reconquered by the Spanish in like 1200, Granada wasn't reconquered until 1492 - and was the crown jewel of the moors occupation in Spain up to 1492.Consequently, there is a lot of Muslim influence in the architecture, and Granada has a very unique culture - more bohemian than other Spanish cities, and gypsies (roma's they are called here) still live in caves outside of the city. They moved into these caves during the Spanish inquisition to avoid prosecution. Seriously, i can't do justice to Granada's history. Please look it up and read about it. It's fascinating. I find my hostel. It was the nicest hostel I have stayed at. The building was a square, with an open air middle courtyard. And another Terrace on the upper floor. The room was very comfortable too with very cool, friendly english speaking roommates - most of which were there for the same three nights that I was. I randomly hear about this "nature walk" tour up to see the aquaducts created by the Moors around 1100. Five minutes later, i'm going for a hike with three Aussies, a girl from Argentina, and another American. We hike straight up hill, and within five minutes, you don't feel like you are in a city anymore at all. Instead it's like accorn/fig tree jungle. The aquaducts were really cool too. They are a feat of intelligent engineering that use gravity and water pressure to run water from the melted snow in the Sierra Nevada to the city (through mountains!) They are still in use today too. Just to think that the Moors were accomplishing this (and other amazing feats of science and art) when the rest of Europe was still in the dark ages digging up filth.

That night, I went to a gypsy bar that was in a cave. (Oddly enough, the bar sort of reminded me of Polli's in Makawao but with less decoration) It is owned by a man who's family has been doing Flamenco for like 500 years. Everynight he and his son (?) play realauthentic Flamenco guitar out on the terrace of the bar. It was a real unique non touristy experience. Very cool.

The next day I went on a walking tour of the Albayzin - the old city part of Granada that used to be the workers quarters during the moors reign. It's got lots of small winding streets, and houses built into the hill with white roofs. I learned a lot about the city - again please read about the history! After the tour, I ended up hanging out with people from the tour all day long. Another american guy, two Aussies, two Germans, a girl from Columbia, a guy from mexico, and a guy and a girl from japan. For the most part, except for the germans, we were all solo travelers that happened to be in Granada at the same time. We sat around and made fun of each others cultures a lot. We went for a walk through the gypsy caves outside of Granada (still don't know if we went the right way. It was like walking through the most unique cave neighborhood. I took pictures. I'll post them eventually). We then went to a hookah bar for a few hours - really good fun and really good company.

My final day in Granada I finally went to the Alahambra - the moorish castle that is the best preserved and most beautiful examples of antique Muslim architecture around. I'd been hearing about it for a while now, and I have to say it is worth the hype. The ornate carving in that castle is exquisite. It is so detailed, and such a feat of discipline and artwork. Every room's walls are covered in complicated carved designs and poetry in arabic. Also, the gardens and the fountains! It's a pretty remarkable palace. The sultan and his 2000 closest court members and servants lived at the Alahambra (not all in the palace of course) for about the same amount of time that the USA has been around currently.

So yeah, Granada was really neat to see. It was neat to hear about all the outdoor activity to be done around Granada too. That is a good thing to know because Madrid seems to be lacking in that effect. It's good to know that other parts of Spain make up for it.

Ok this email has gotten long enough (and I had to write the Granada part twice because my computer is uber obnoxious and decided to erase it).

I'll write more about my apartment soon!

love you all

Becs

EMAIL September 6 2010 A WEEK LATER pt 2

Hello again!

Not too much has happened after Granada except for moving into my apartment (and lots of heavy lifting). The enigmatic Ricardo situation ended up being just fine. He's perfectly amiable to live with.I am the 7th or so roommate from EBC that he has had in the last 7 months, so me being here isn't anything new to him. The apartment is nice, simple, and clean. My room is about half the size of any room i've ever lived in, but my stuff fits, the bed is comfortable (it even came with sheets) so i'm perfectly content. He also has wireless, which is awesome! (I was concerned that he wouldn't). He himself is, I'd guess, about 40 years old. Single. And from Chile. He understands English pretty well, and can speak it sufficiently enough to communicate. He's a scuba dive instructor, although I think his job in Madrid has to do with handyman work. He also loves Motorcycles, and has a huge one out front of the apartment. He's even going to some motorcycle expo next week for holiday - leaving me with the apartment for a week to myself! Yes! So far we just keep to ourselves. He seems pretty shy, respectful, and considerate. We watch a lot of tv in Spanish, which is just fine by me. it's sort of feels like I'm living with a Spanish version of Francis or Darryl again (my 40 year old bachelor tour mates all spring) except i don't have to be so dependent on transportation or anything, so in that way it's kind of better.

Small cultural things about the apartment that you should know:
- the refrigerator is significantly smaller than any you would find in America
- The washing machine is in the kitchen and takes three times as long as the one back home. There is no dryer (my travel clothes line with suction cup endings is VERY handy!)
- The shower is also very small with a detachable shower head. This is how every shower has been since i've been in spain, so I guess it's just how it is here.
- The doorknob on my apartment's front door is in the middle of the door
- The light switches look different
- There is a permanent bum down the street named John Luc (I think) who is from italy, lives in Spain now, and traveled all over - even to America. Consequently he speaks fluent Italian, fluent Spanish, and not bad English. He likes to tell me that because I'm from Hawaii I should look like a body builder from Waikiki (where he has also been). Hilarious.
- His tv on most channels can switch from English to Spanish with a push of a button (pretty cool!)

I'm feeling pretty good overall. Mostly I've spent the last bit of time (since 7pm Friday) getting errands done, getting situated, and getting work done for the course. I'm a little lonely, but hopefully that will change when the course starts tomorrow. Honestly, I probably need the downtime and the sleep - traveling is such a whirlwind of activity and people, it's good to have some time to relax before this intensive course I'm about to start.

I feel like I've been in a lot of awkward situations lately - mostly because of the lack of Spanish thing. It's sort of obnoxious not understanding what people say to me, or not being able to communicate like a normal person It's part of the adventure, I feel good natured about it. Still, it's hard to notice how much of a buffoon I feel like. Even just buying groceries, I have to spend so much time looking at labels, figuring out what's what, watching the locals.I think I'm going to start counting the times I have moments of awkward encounters. Just yesterday alone, there was the episode at the grocery store where I didn't know I had to pay for shopping bags, so the woman instructed me in rapid spanish to which I gave a smilling blank stare. Or the time at the department store when I had to go to the bathroom. I asked, and was given rapid spanish insturctions. A few times this happened. Finally, I found one on the second floor. But it was being cleaned. The cleaning lady told me where to find another one... but in Spanis. So, I had to surreptitiously follow a Spanish girl to the other bathroom on the 7th floor. It was pretty funny.My weekend has been full of moments like these.

it doesn't help that the Aussies I was hanging out in Granada with ragged on me a lot for being American, and my American accent, and my American accented Spanish. They deemed me a cool American, but made good fun of me a lot anyway. I hadn't been in that sort of cultural situation before. It was interesting. Consequently, i'm a bit more embarrassed to try speaking the language. it's not stopping me, but it does make me feel a bit more self conscious. I'm trying to be patient. I know my Spanish can only get better. But I think I've sort of reached a point where I just need to learn more Spanish before I can improve at the rate i want. Once my course starts and i know what to expect from it, i'm going to find a Spanish course to take, and set up some intercambios (language exchanges with native spanish speakers).Occasionally I realize I am learning how to be an independent adult in addition to living in a foreign country. Even just budgeting nd buying groceries (daunting tasks for a new adult even in her home state) i now have to figure out with everyone being in Spanish around me. There are cultural things about this country I just have no way of knowing. It can be a bit daunting! But, it will be ok. I want it to be ok. Everytime I feel a little overwhelmed, cus this is overwhelming at times, I just tell myself that this is what I wanted. At least it keeps things - like, everything - interesting and novel. So, bring it on Spain!

Alright, i'm going to make me some lunch now. It's nice to have a kitchen to do that in again.

Becca

EMAIL September 9 2010 FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES

It's about the be Thursday of the first week of class. Thursday I teach my first class in English to a group of adult speakers who won't understand a word I'm saying. Awesome? I think yes. Writing the lesson plan for this lesson took way too long. It is an hour lesson, and I've probably spent about 5 or 6 hours preparing for it. That is a messed up ratio me thinks. However, this is my first of 8 lessons I will be planning and teaching. Hopefully it will just get easier. (My second lesson is on Friday to adult students who may or may not understand what I'm saying....also awesome).

I will give you a quick rundown of the people in my class. I know you must be curious. (If you aren't, just humor me. I was going crazy with curiosity of what these people would be like for months. Therefore, you can at least feign some curiosity).

There are the three girls from Jersey: Laura, Ali, and Angela, who all knew each other from college at the University of Delaware, and plan to be roommates together after the course. So far they seem pretty friendly, but also sort of keep to themselves. It was Ali's idea to move to Spain. The other girls, with some prodding, decided to come along. They are all 22, fresh out of college.

There is Dan: Dan is from Santa Monica CA. He was an education major. I haven't spent too much time with them yet. He's currenty rooming with Ali, so he's more part of the Jersey gang for the moment. He's 25, one year out of college. Oh, and he's also the only boy in the class, much to his chagrin (don't know why he's complaining really. At least it's a good looking group).

There are the two bohemians from Miami: Grace and Christie are sweethearts. They are my favorites of the American girls. They are out for adventure, travel, and having a good time and meeting people along the way. They know each other from college (UF), traveled around Spain before the course started for a week or two (like I did). I haven't hung out with them outside of class yet, but we have plans to travel around spain and maybe go hiking for a weekend once the course settles down. They are also 22 and fresh out of college.

There's the (crazy?) German lady: Her name is Andrea. Her accent is thick (I'm not really sure how she's going to teach English. She can be hard to understand. She's definitely the oldest in the class (i'm guessing late 30's, maybe 40's?) Her being possibly crazy started officially today. She was VERY difficult when we presented out lesson plans to the group. Basically, from what i've heard (she wasn't in my group), she made half the class stay an hour late through her stubborness to get advice about her lesson plan, advice that she then didn't take. In addition, her lesson plan is aimed towards advanced (mostly fluent) English speakers, and it's about sharks. Sharks! We have been instructed to make our lessons as life applicable as possible. And somehow she's decided that an hour long lesson about sharks will capture the interest of her mostly fluent, Spanish students (hmmmmmm.....). I honestly try to like everyone, and wish the best for everyone. And i wish her the best, nor do I dislike her. But I do dislike when she asks not very useful questions in class and engages the teachers time discussing nothing particularly relevant for 10 minutes. Anyway, she seems nice and well meaning enough, and could quite possibly make the class, erm, interesting in the future.

There's the bilingual duel citizenship girl: Alana was born in California, but raised in Spain and England. Her Mom's American, her Dad is Spanish. She has a perfect English accent, yet is enrolling in Spanish University for this semester to take lessons (Spanish) on Education (her major). Is that cool or what? Am I jealous? just a smidge. She is taking the TEFL course as a supplement to her major and to see what she wants to do. She is also 22. I haven't gotten to know her much yet, but I enjoy the conversations I have had with her.

There's the girl from England: Sophie is about 27 and has worked as a social worker with troubled teens for 6 years. She finds the social work very stressful, so she wants to possibly switch gears and move to Spain and teach English. Consequently, she's taking the course on her one month holiday from work. She's contracted to work until December in England. She's a pretty cool chick. I've spent the most time with her (and Renei) so far. I'm enjoying getting to know her.

There's the Spanish girl: Renei was born in Madrid, is spanish through and through, and has a heavy thick accent. She didn't learn English until she decided to move to London about 5 years back, and lived there for 4 years. She was/is a make-up special effects artist. She's hoping the TEFL course can lead to a good way for her to supplement her English. Poor thing however, is not really as good in English as a native born speaker, so she's pretty worried about being able to complete the course work. She's 29.

As I said, i've spent the most time so far with Renei and Sophie. We spent the last two afternoons together. Last night (Tuesday) I was at Renei's until about midnight writing lesson plans together. We went to the grocery store after the course, went shopping a bit too (I bought two pairs of shoes and a pair of earings for only 5 euros! incredible). Renei cooked us dinner. She's a great, giving girl.

And that's been my week so far! The course is a lot of sitting and listening, but I'm enjoying it (three days in...), The teacher's name is john. He's Norwegian, and can be kind of abrupt and can accidentally make you feel dumb. This seems to rub at least Sophie and Renei the wrong way. I don't find it too bad though; I can see past it. He's a good guy, and very knowledgeable about grammar (though i'm not too impressed with his time management so far).

What you should also know is I have possibly already secured myself a great apartment for October! Renei has two Spanish roommates, and one of them is moving out. I saw the apartment yesterday. It's pretty friggin awesome. It's a bit outside of the city, center, but in a real Madrid, safe neighborhood, with super cheap awesome grocery stores and shopping stores. It's also an area extremely accessible by public transport. it's off of one of the mainlines - six stops and you are in the city center. In this way, it's easier to get o the city center from her place then mine! In addition, the price is awesome! 317 euros a month for my own room, two terraces, a kitchen, water and heat included (and the electricity bill is nothing - about 10 a month for internet and electricity). Her other roommate (who would be my roommate) Also is Spanish but pretty much English fluent. She's 32. They told me they were hoping for an English speaking person to live there, a girl who would be sociable, and want to watch movies, grab or make dinner together, and go out together often. Therefore it's a perfect situation for me to learn Spanish and learn the real madrid/spanish culture. As the situation stands, either me or Sophie will be moving in in October, probably me since Sophie would have to break contract to stay in Spain immediately. It seems like a great and easy opportunity to land an awesome cheap apartment with awesome and nice Spanish roommates. But I also know that Sophie is a better fit than I am (she's the right age, and she smokes, it's a smoking apartment. This is Spain afterall). Whereas I am a bit younger, don't smoke, and, frankly, am more of a nerd compared to them. I know I don't necessarily fit. So, well see? I think everything will work out. There is still three weeks. Things could change. And if I end up in this apartment, which is most likely, there are a lot of pluses!

That's it for me. i'm going to take a shower and get some sleep while I can.

love you. Let me know what's going on!

Becca

EMAIL September 18 2010 MORE CLASS plus SHOPPING IN SPANISH

hello all! I have a ton of work to do for my course tonight, so this will be brief, but I'll do my best to write again soon.

Class is going well. I taught my third class today. And I have to write a lesson plan tonight for my fourth class tomorrow. Class is a lot of sitting. And learning what tense sentences like "She had been sitting in class learning about English grammar all day when she realized she had no interest in learning anymore about it." (by the way, that's past perfect continuous... mostly).

It's cool to learn about this stuff, but sitting there for hours learning about it is tedious. The class is informative. The people in it are nice, but the class could be a bit better structured. Lesson plans take a long time. Next week I have to write 4 of them. I must get faster. I have some ideas to do so...

Mostly I am just looking forward to the weekend. My friend Seeba from Texas will be hanging out with me in Madrid. It will be a good good time.... Seeba says we aren't allowed to have any fun though ;)

i think I will also be starting a Spanish intercambio next week. More details on that later.

And i am also still probably moving into Rene's apartment come October. I'll know for sure by the end of next week.

As of today I have a Spanish Bank Account! With Euros in it to last me till at least November! (I should have an income by then) And a debit card for the account! I am very excited about this. So excited that i went grocery shopping with the last cash I had.

Spanish grocery shopping can be awesome.Despite peanut butter being harder to find than a new born with a full head of hair I'm loving it. I had a great moment the other day in the pasta isle trying to figure out what the hell was Tomato sauce and what was tomato paste (I gave up. Will try again later). Anyway, after teaching a class of 6 Spanish beginners language about music that was mostly too difficult for them, I was hankering for a glass of wine, so I went to the store....

I bought 6 peaches, 3 pairs, 6 cage free eggs, a small loaf of bread, a bar of chocolate, and a bottle of white wine for a wopping 5.67 euros! woah that's awesome! (it's about $8) Just found the grocery store that's only 3 blocks from my house. Ricardo showed it to me the first night I moved in, but it took me until yesterday to relocate the damn thing. hehe.

Ok I have to go back to work.

love you, keep sending me updates!

Email September 25 2010 TEACHING ENGLISH IS SO HARD.... SPANISH SLANG IS GREAT

Hello all! It's me again. I realize I haven't written a good update for a while now. Hopefully this will fix this.

I am officially moving in with Rene and Lara - the two Spanish girls on Friday. I'm really excited for this. Both of them are wonderfully nice, friendly people. It will be a really good change after this month with my stranger roommate. Ricardo has been perfectly fine to live with, but I prefer to be friends with my roommates rather than feel like I'm a stranger in my own apartment. I went shopping with the two of them today at a cheap outlet mall outside of the city. They helped my make some great purchase decisions. And we already have plans to throw a Halloween party later this month. And I'm sure that living with both of them will make my Spanish improve much quicker than if I was living with English only speaking girls. I'll try to take some pictures and send them of my new flat... or finally start that blog I want to start...

Yes, you heard correctly - Spain celebrates Halloween. According to Rene, they really get into it too. We had a wonderful culturally mixed up conversation about it last night. She was telling me how she was a cannibal for Halloween last year, and that she loves using lots of bloody make up and stuff every year. I told her that last year I was a fairy, and the year before I was a cow girl - and she gave me the weirdest look at said, "Babe, you can't be a cow girl for Halloween." I asked why not? The whole point of Halloween is dressing up as something else...... apparently this is not quite the case in Spain (or England - Sophie tells me) Here, you can only dress like scary things. She thought it was hilarious that in America you can dress up like a princess or a mouse. Here, if you did that (and you weren't a dead princess or something) people would look at you really weird and even maybe throw tomatoes or eggs at you. Who knew! Here I thought that Halloween was something only America celebrated now a days, but no! Spain does Halloween better than America does

I've been taught some great Spanish expressions that translate into utter silliness in English recently too.

- monkey: Spanish people have many uses for the word monkey - if you see something that is cute, you say "Que mona!" - "what monkey!" if it's really cute you say "que monalita!" - "what little monkey" (I think? Don't quote me on that one.) But THEN monkey can also mean you are in with drawl. For example if you are fixin' for a cigarette or something, you would say "tengo mona" "I have monkey." ......

- Octopus: - Spanish people (or at least the girls) call a guy who is too touchy feely a "pulpo" an "octopus." Weirdly enough, this is one, i've been told, is really bad, not one you would use in proper company, more for the sex and city like convos you have with your girl friends. you would DEFINITELY not tell the guy who was a "pulpo" that would be really bad form....

- Onion: - this is my last one for now. Rene and Lara were telling us about Salsa dancing here, and how you have to be careful because though most boys are just there to dance, some will take advantage of how close they get to be to you while salsa dancing, and they may, while dancing, try to "frotando de la cebolleta" - "grind their little onion" and that we should not put up with it. Yup, "grind their little onion...." Again, this is vulgar slang not be used in everyday respectable conversation. But I think it's funny.

Oh yeah! And when I met Lara and Rene today, they told me that they were talking and decided that they must teach me all the silly Spanish phrases. so today they taught me "ping pong poom, bocadillo de atun." which directly translates to "ping pong poom (that part's nonsense) tuna sandwich." And you use this phrase when you're friends are talking about something and you just don't care any more "ping pong poom, tuna sandwich" I love it.

Moving on from Spanish slang for now.... to class. Oh class. I am so glad it is almost over. Because it is making me a bit cranky crazy. I had really high expectations for myself going into this class. I thought - I'm a hard worker, I've taught before, I've excelled at intensive classes before. This should be totally easy for me to do well at with a little determination. And it's not that it has been ridiculously hard - I've dealt with worse. But, I think secretly wanted to be one of the best, if not the best in the class. And I don't think i've achieved that and it makes me very mad. I think I'm doing mediocre. I think I'm not very good at teaching English - I'm a good teacher, I present whatever I am presenting well.... but teaching concepts in a foreign language requires a lot of creativity on how to present info to people who might be understanding a word you are saying, and it requires knowing how to not make lessons too hard, or too complicated - I like to make everything too complicated. Sigh, so the last 4 classes I've taught I have been unsatisfied with. the first two were too hard, so I did not get to my final "produce" activity. So this week I tried to make my classes less complicated... I still did not manage to make it to the produce activity. And I'm not being creative enough in my activities. I read other people's lessons, and for the most part i'm on par with their creativity, but I know I could be even better. I take for granted that I am a capable, creative person - and I don't feel like these skills are coming through enough in my lessons for me to say this. So... I need to work harder, and I accept that....Except I'm already working quite hard. Planning a lesson takes numerous hours. And then you have to make all the worksheets and visuals for the lesson. I say I spend about 2.5+ hours planning the lesson and then another 4 if not 6 hours making the damn stuff for the lesson, a one hour lesson! I asked John how long it should be taking us to do this stuff.... not as long as it is taking me. I'm not alone in this. It's taking many people in the class a long time to get everything done, particularly Rene because poor thing has to do it all in a second language. It doesn't help either that class time is generally insipid. We could be using the class time learning much better than we are. Everyone is having a hard time not day dreaming, and everyone is doodling in their notebooks. When you have so much to do, it sucks sitting there, not doing anything all that productive instead of doing what you want to get done.

This week was really tiring. We had to plan 4 lessons by Wednesday evening, and teach on Thursday, and teach another one on Friday. Typically, I work all day or listen all day in class till 5, then I come home by 5:40, or hang out with people till 8 or so (take a deserved hour or so break, make/eat dinner) then work on lessons until 12:30 or 1, 1:30. Then wake up at 8:30 and do it.

It didn't help that i got some weird 24 hour flu thing on Wednesday to Thursday which completely wiped me of energy and strength - including mental strength. luckily I'm about back to normal now. I'm so glad the illness was short.

I just get frustrated that I am working hard (possibly as hard as I am willing to) on this stuff, and i'm not producing results that I'm proud of. I find this a very frustrating equation. It means i'm not working smart, and I'm not sure how to work smarter. It makes me doubt my capability and intelligence, and that's not comfortable. So, I won't do that, but it's taking a lot of self pep talk not to.

But really, it's ok. i'm just venting. I just don't like having to work harder than I thought I was going to have to - that's my own deal. I need to change my perspective. And i have so much work to do still until Wednesday that it's going to be uncomfortable getting it done, especially getting it done with quality since doing less than personally satisfying work takes forever. Deadlines suck. Nature of the beast, but it will pass. I know..... and then I have to get a job- a whole OTHER beast to deal with. Ugh. And i'm not so sure i enjoy teaching English yet.

but it's good for me. it's adventure. I trust it will work out. I'm telling myself that it's ok I don't know all the answers yet. It's even possibly a good thing. So.... Bring it on Spain! There's still nothing I'd rather be doing right now.

Speaking of right now, right now I have to go and get ready to go to the apartment of the American jersey girls (who have warmed up a bit and now are becoming more friendly).

love you all, pep talks are appreciated, and yes, by writing this, i feel better and realize how much i'm over thinking.

Love Becca

emails from August

Email AUGUST 25 2010 ESTOY EN MADRID!!!

Finally arrived in Madrid this morning!! It is pretty exciting stuff. Since when I arrived it was, oh 3 in the morning mountain time (the zone I left), I had about enough energy to reach the hostel in Madrid center, before passing out for about 2.5 hours. Then I repacked everything so my big suitcase is now way heavy, and my small suitcase has the stuff I want to travel with... well, pretty much.

The hostel I am staying with is so far less than friendly, but I'll work on it. Apparently there is a pub crawl (tapas crawl) loosely organized here everynight, so I will probably do that tonight. For now, I am off to roam the city proper for the first time, and to see how luggage lockers work at the train stations because I'm hoping to lock up my big suitcase till next week. The hostel I am at doesn't have lockers (weird) so it upmost important that I figure this out first for peace of mind. (right now my luggage is locked with my own locks, in a locked room, but it's a shared room, so I'm not thrilled about the situation. Someone could still take them. Therefore EVERYTHING i don't want to lose is on my person. It's kind of annoying).

Everything is in Spanish, including the writing on the can of coke I am drinking right now, and the google page my internet network opened too. Already my brain is working in spanish harder than it ever has. Thank goodness I know the language at least a little bit. Thank goodness at least one of my spanish years in high school was taught well. Still there is so much to learn and figure out, both language wise and, well, everything!!!! But that's what I signed up for. Vive la adventure!

Well I'm off to find comida! (food) wish me luck!

Hata luego (till the next time)

Becca

EMAIL home: August 29 2010 DESPUES A POCO MAS DIAS

Hello again. I'm still In Madrid, and still getting lost in my wanderings, but not as much... I think. I've decided I really really like this city. It is sort of a combination of New York city and Boston North end, with more pedestrian only streets (and the occasional vespa or car threatening to run you over on a street that you thought was pedestrian only) Oh yeah, and the fact that everything is in Spanish. So far it seems walkable, bustling, and accessible. There are endless shops and restaurants, so I know I'll have a good time exploring the many possibilities. Consequently, true to form, I wander a lot looking for a place to eat or drink until I can't stand it any longer and wind up at a random ice cream shop or McDonalds. Really, yesterday I ate lunch at McDonalds (best McDonalds salad i've ever had in fact.) The fruit is very good too. I discovered a fruteria (fruit only store. There are many) yesterday, and bought a peach. It was huge and delicious and only cost .50 euros =) People here are very very friendly and helpful too.One Madrileno came to my rescue in the subway yesterday as I was trying to get my now 60 some pound bag through the entrance turnstyle. He decided to help me lift it over, no help asked for, no english spoken. I was very grateful.

I went for a run yesterday in retiro parque, Madrid's own version of central park. It is so nice! Apparently it was only for royalty until the late 1800's or something. There's a pond you can rent boats on, a pathway winding around a creek, live music somewhere, and my favorite, a labyrinth rose garden! And guess what, I heard swing music as I ran, and came across a lindy balboa (swing dancing) club that meets weekly. I got the information, and plan to go to the next gathering. Dancing is universal, right? Well, I'll find out.

I didn't meet anyone for the first 36 hours. It was weird. Usually i'm very outgoing in hostel situations, but for some reason this hostel is a bit daunting. Honestly I don't feel like putting out anything more than minimal friendly effort. But at the last minute last night I did go out for Tapas with a girl from my room (she was french canadian), and together we to had an awesome time. We found this small street PACKED with restaurants and street tables, and waiters trying to usher us in with promises of cervazas gratis (free beer). But apparently, one waiter actually meant it when he said he'd give us beer for free. he gave us 2 free beers each, chose tapas for us (delicious green olives, Jamon y bread, and this awesome mushroom covered toast thing) - total for this? (3 plates, and 6 beers total?) less than 10 euros. Needless to say we tipped him, whether it is culturally expected or not.
We got back from our tapas excursion just in time for me to go on the pub crawl.... which started at 1am btw. Only three people from my hostel went, but we met up with a huge group of australians from another hostel also on the pub tour. I hung out mostly with a guy from and brazil, who spoke pore English, and his friend from Italy, who spoke better english and even better spanish with his brazillian friend. So, I spent my night talking in broken spanish and english, and all was understood. Consequently, i'm feelinleg more spanish confident. I still have a lot to learn... A LOT... but I can already get by better and am thinking and using spanish about 30% easier than when I got here just two days ago.

The pub crawl ended in a fancy big 7 story club called Kapitol.I swear, big clubs are the same everywhere: overpriced (beer there costs times more than it does at a pub! And they wanted to charge me 6 euros for water!!), not great music, and basically a meet market. Spanish boys are hilarious. There come on line? Como te llama (what is your name). How original, right? They are definitely forward little buggers too many grabbed my hand to kiss it, but they are not bad. Just ridiculous.

I got back around 6:30 in the morning.... and slept till about noon, missing check out for the hostel. woops! Luckily, I can stay another night.
Although tomorrow I'm planning on heading to Toledo for a few night as soon as I can. I don't know where I'm staying there yet, so wish me luck! I have a hostel in mind, but they really might not have any openings.


Please keep sending responses to me emails, no matter how short! They really help me through the lonely overwhelmed feelings popping u that tend to from time to time

Love you all

Becca