I'm back at school!!!! I can't believe how utterly and genuinely excited I was to go back. It started to make me feel slightly strange to be so ready to get back. But honestly, I hadn't been doing too much with my time while I was off and I was starting to feel like I was getting used to being lazy (which is NOT good).
So, I had to force myself to get out early on Monday to do some much needed grocery shopping. See, Tuesday was El Dia de Los Reyes Magos (which is like "Three Kings Day" when you translate it but really refers to the Three Wise Men). That is like Christmas here. It is the day when the kids (and adults) get the bulk of their gifts and spend time with their families. Instead of having Santa Claus at the mall waiting for kids to tell him what they want, they have the three wise men there. So I knew that I would have to shop and run errands because everything would be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday I would have to start back to school. In tradition that my mother instilled in me, I ventured to four different grocery stores to buy items. I first went to Supersol (which is in the mall) to pick up my pizzas. There they had samples (a rarity here, I had never seen samples in a grocery store until then) of Roscon de Los Reyes Magos which is the traditional cake for Three Kings Day. I was so surprised to see samples, I didn't know whether or not I should take one. But one of my friends here who is dating a Spanish man told me and another friend we should try the cake whenever we get a chance. Here was the perfect opportunity, it was free and a small piece in case I didn't like it! So after slyly passing by two or three times, I finally took a piece and fell in love. That cake is soooooooo good. It tasted a lot like a pastry (cream cheese Danish without the cream cheese) with icing wedged between it. There are little candy-like (think of the wafer-looking candies on top of cakes) treats on top. So yummy!
After that, I went to El Corte Ingles (The English Court) supermarket to pick up some veggie burgers and cheddar cheese. The vegetarian section was as bare as I have ever seen it! I really think they had to have cleared it out because I know for a fact there aren't that many vegetarians here eating up all that food. So I ended up getting the cheddar (white cheddar to be exact, mmm mmm good!) and some shrimp scampi stuff that looked decent. After that I headed to La Tienda de Chinos (The Chinese store) to pick up some Ramen Noodles (college life all over again) and finally Maxi Dia ("Big Day" which is basically a warehouse grocery store) to get most of my stuff. I then headed home as I was pretty beat.
My first day back was wonderful! I arrived at school for conversation class with Maria Jesus where we talked about what we would be singing (or playing) next in class which includes "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and some other children's songs. Then I had like 3 free hours because nobody likes me (or the teachers didn't feel like doing anything, I'm hoping that was why).
One of the teachers had a birthday and made some trufas de chocolate. These things were SO good. I asked her about them and she said she'll send me the recipe. Cha-ching! They're basically hazelnuts rolled in chocolate and then rolled in chocolate sprinkles. Well, she invited me and another teacher to coffee and there they talked about the crisis and all. A really good learning experience because it was nothing but Spanish being spoken. She paid for it (when you get invited to have coffee, the inviter generally pays for it). It was nice of her since it was her birthday and all. Then I met with Ruben and we talked about how the classes are split up and how students become a part of the bilingual program. He also told me that there is a Baptist Church behind the school and that made me really excited. I am going to check it out next week to see when they have services. And last but not least, I had class with the Primero students. I went to the class and we started talking about prehistory and AD and BC. Then we got into talking about Columbus and the discovery of America and Spain's interest (or lack thereof) in what America had to offer after some time. Funny funny!
Thursday was a great day as well. The first class I had was with the Primero kids and Alain decided to split them up into the groups again. This time I received a different group of students and we were to talk about what we all did over the break. These kids were cracking me up. They were telling me how they went to different parts of Spain to celebrate with their families. And some of the gifts they received were pretty nice! Computers, iPods, money (one girl said she got 100 euros), wii game systems, wii games, games for other game systems, cell phones, etc. Shoot...what I would do to be a kid again. One kid said he was with about 50 family members in Huelva. And the kids were like, "Oh, that's nothing. That's a small number." What?! 50 people from the same family together in one place?! And it wasn't a planned family reunion celebration? How nice. I then had the students take a crack at a worksheet that Alain gave us. Even I didn't know how to do the sheet. It was about pronunciation and matching the letters to the symbols that show what they should sound like. So basically the students could look up the word in the dictionary and see the pronunciation key and use that to answer the questions but they wanted to know why it was this and why this was that. I think I started to learn right along with them though.
Then I had Math where we talked about decimals and conversions and such. The stuff that I remember not a single rule of, how to convert a decimal to a fraction. I know basics but the rules they talked about were new to me (or a nice review). After that, I had a nice little break and then I met with Rafa. When I tell you I learn so much from my conversation classes (and regular classes too), I'm not at all exaggerating. We are starting on the Prehistory section and Rafa wanted to go over what we would discuss in class. He decided to give me a pop quiz and see which words I could translate that were associated with history. Needless to say I failed horribly (good thing it wasn't a real quiz). I was so ashamed. And they were words I should've known because I learned them in my first or second year of Spanish class. Guess I'm learning now. In class on Wednesday, we talked about how the first two men to go around the world were Magellen (Portuguese) and Elcano (Spanish). Well, I read something in the newspaper that said "Elcano" and I was super excited because I remembered it. I mentioned it to Rafa and he said it was probably the ship for "sailor/marine school" that they use to learn about older type ships. Interesting.
I tried to check out the rebajas (sale) to see if I could get the hair accessories but apparently the Cocoa place is more of a general accessories and clothing place. They had very few shirts/skirts/pants but a lot of necklaces, belts, watches, bracelets, and other accessories. It's a nice little place though, worth a second look when I'm not on a quest to actually find something I need. I e-mailed the woman who made the trufas de chocolate and she e-mailed me the recipe with a quickness. Yes! I probably won't make that here but at least I have the recipe. With the advice of my parents (especially my father), I e-mailed the job I was looking into and she said they are still reviewing applicants. My dad said that's better than her saying I didn't get it off the bat. I also texted the girl that helped me find one of the pisos I was looking at in November to invite her to have coffee or lunch with me as a form of thanks and she said she's down.
Today, I wanted to check out the rebajas minus the crowd but now (3:39pm) it's too late for that and I still feel rather blah. So I'll spend my time inside. I am going to try to make a spinach salad with oil and vinegar and tuna and cheddar. I am sure it will be absolutely delicious.
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