christmas home family christmas home family

I’m at home in Yellowstone for Christmas. I’m taking a break from my tales of jaunting around Europe (oh, and that teaching thing, too) and am concentrating on relaxing at home—I’m hanging out with my family, visiting old friends, going skiing every day, drinking lots of good dark beer, working on application essays for graduate school, sorting through boxes of old stuff to go to the Salvation Army, and enjoying the true Christmasy feel of being home for the holidays.

My parents and brother came to Spain to visit me and to explore for a week before we all flew back together. One of my favorite things is the grin that I feel after waiting edgily for hours for my family’s plane to arrive, then seeing them emerge through the crowds at the airport. It happens every time I see them! I always grin sillily for several minutes, and I’m always overjoyed to see them. The week together in Spain was wonderful, because we got lots of good family time in, and we all got to explore new places. We ate mesas-full of delicious food, drove over breathtaking mountain roads in the northern part of Mallorca, and ogled the masterpieces for hours in the Prado. We wandered the backroads of Santanyí and my whole family tried their hand at teaching English in the elementary school in S’Alquería Blanca.

We spent seven nights on Mallorca, two nights in Madrid, and then flew back to the states. Our planes barely squeaked through snow-laden airports, but we eventually made it home at 2AM on Christmas Eve. It was a whirlwind adventure, and now it’s lovely to be home. I’ve gone cross-country skiing every day since I’ve gotten here, and I plan on going skiing every single day until I leave. Because we didn’t have much time to settle into the true Christmas spirit before Christmas, we’ve been making up for it now: my mom has been reading me Christmas stories every night, I still listen to Christmas music in the car (I LOVE DRIVING!), and I never tire of looking at our Christmas tree. We didn’t go up into the forest this year to cut our own tree, but it’s a real tree nonetheless. Unfortunately, my parents made the mistake of recruiting the fire marshal’s daughter to take care of our cat, Herman, while they were away in Spain: the fire marshal gifted them with a can of fire-proofing spray for trees. It’s white, powdery, and smells like cat piss. Luckily, my parents chose a hearty, healthy tree—it withstood the chemical dousing pretty well, and the fir-tree smell still overpowers the underlying fire-retardant cat stench. No offense to cats.

I might write more about the time with my family in Spain a little later—right now, I’m pretty tired of staring at my computer screen. I’m applying to Portland State University and Georgetown University for MATESL programs (Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second Language) and Georgetown’s application essay needs to be 500 words long or less. Whoever can express themselves elegantly and accurately in 500 words must be a genius—I’ve been swearing at my essay for three days now, and a few hours ago I finally took a deep breath and slashed the heart out of it to cut it down to size. Now I’m staring at my butchered 499-word essay, trying to decide if it’s worth the risk to apply with the 900-word essay that I like better. Who knows. I’ll sleep on it, choose one version, and hit the submit button tomorrow. It’s funny that no matter how far I go, stress always catches up with me. As soon as I finish Georgetown’s application, I need to work on Portland State’s application, then I need to apply for a few more jobs for next summer, then I need to think about clearing out my room, then oh, yeah, I need to enjoy being at home! Don’t worry—coming home is always my favorite feeling in the world, and I am fully appreciating spending Christmas in Yellowstone with my family.

On Jan. 11, I fly to Seattle to visit my grandparents, and on Jan. 14, I fly back to Spain to start round 2. I am so glad that I get to spend 5 more months in Spain! I’m starting to make friends, my roommate and I are getting along really well, I love my job, and I plan to go back to Spain full of new ideas to try in the classroom. In the meantime, I’ve got two full weeks left at home, and I’m enjoying them to the last drop!

riding in trains (Austria part II)

This first half of this blog is a bit of stream-of-consciousness, or a list of random thoughts, written down while on the train heading from Innsbruck to Salzburg, and then a bit that I wrote while sitting in front of the Salzburg cathedral.

The second half of the blog is a recap of my day in Salzburg. This is the second part of my trip to Austria; go to the first part if you haven’t read that already.

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Riding out on the train early Tuesday morning just as the sun gilds the tops of the peaks ringing Innsbruck.

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Relationship vs. Individuality: Heidi and I had a long discussion on a train going back from her parents’ house to Innsbruck. A difference between Austria and America, Heidi said, is that Austrians put more stock on relationships. They focus on building a life with someone, on forming relationships, whereas in America, we are more focused on personal gain. It’s true that in the US, it’s considered almost unhealthy to base your life on a relationship. We consider it better to make yourself happy, to find satisfaction in what you’re doing, and then find someone with similar interests, or someone that is at a similar station in life. This position seemed absurd to Heidi: if you’re only focused on yourself, how are you ever going to have the energy required to put the necessary effort into a relationship? Heidi and I only talked about Austrian-American cultural differences, leaving religion out of the discussion (believing or not believing, forming a relationship with God and Christ, how spiritual relationships affect our own relationships, etc.). As with any question, finding a balance is essential. Living completely for another human being is a denial of all that is good in our own, individual lives; living only for yourself is selfish and the surest way to lead a lonely, miserable life. Food for thought.

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Foggy valley bottoms, sun glinting off high mountain slopes as the train whizzes through the Tirol.

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How much do we ever really say to each other? It’s funny what I can’t say here in this blog—sometimes I think I should just send out a mass email, like I did while in Ecuador, but even then, I still can’t say everything I want to in an email. Would it be better to Skype with people individually? Or just wait until I get home, to talk face-to-face? Even with someone in the same room, or sitting side-by-side on a sofa, how much are we really saying? How much can we read someone else’s heart?

It’s a miracle, I believe, when you can connect with someone and know that your words are being understood exactly the way you mean them. It’s these kinds of connections that I miss.

German: head full of words floating in a dark pool, and I just pick phrases at random.

Being here makes me appreciate living in Spain, where my grasp on Spanish is so much less tenuous. As soon as I get back to Mallorca, though, I’ll start thinking longingly of English, and all the ways I can use nuances to narrow in on my precise meaning. Even two native speakers, though, of any language, can wildly miscommunicate—which brings me back to the point that meeting someone at the same level is a miracle.

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Green fields as we cut through the southern part of Bavaria, in Germany! Flat, rolling landscape out the left window, sharp peaks out the right. Instantly flatter as we crossed the Austrian-German border. About to go by Chiemsee.

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Despite this discussion of the aloneness, or the separateness, of individual people, or the idea that every person is (an island? a bubble-boy unable to pop the plastic wrap?) it’s true that “no man is an island” and that we all connect with each other, somehow, at some level. But how? And when?

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fog over Chiemsee, sun blinding through clouds, slanting through copses of trees, rolling white farmland. Coming into Salzburg. When did we cross back into Austria?

Sitting on the steps of the cathedral listening to the singing. Open-air concert of 1) traditional Christmas songs in German, 2) a flute rendition of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” 3) some song called “Essdet ihr” or “Esse dir”. The third category: perhaps some combination of Latin and the Salzburg dialect of German? No. Turns out to be “As The Deer” (as in “As the deer panteth for the water / so my soul longeth after You / You alone are my heart’s desire / and I long to worship You”). I haven’t heard that song since my years in Youth Group. What memories! 4) the encore: “As The Deer”. Again.

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Now that I’m back on sunny Mallorca, I think there was an interesting dualism in my short trip to Austria. The first few days were spent with Andi and Heidi, and I had some wonderful, interesting discussions with both of them. I played games and drank Glühwein with Andi’s friends, I hung out with Heidi’s cat and drank schnapps with Heidi’s mom, and I felt like a real person. As soon as I stepped off the train in Salzburg, however, I turned into a pure tourist. I loved it! I loved Salzburg, but without ever actually talking to anybody (I mean about anything that matters), how much did I actually see? Can a tourist ever get to know the motivations, or the reasons for being, of life in whatever town or country he or she is visiting? Is it important to have deep convos with everyone, or is it enough to broaden our horizons just by going to new places? Is the answer in eco-tourism, which seeks to have visitors make a connection to the new place, thereby establishing in the visitor value in the land? Is the answer in couch surfing, which “makes the world a better place, one couch at a time,” where people open their homes and share about their culture with curious, receptive travelers? Or should someone have to move to another country, establish herself in an apartment with a roommate from a country she’s never been to and probably won’t ever go to, work with the children—the future of the community—and try to set up meaningful relationships with the people there? Is that the best way to learn more about the world?

Whatever the answer (if there is an answer), I put philosophical musings aside as I traipsed through Salzburg on a gloriously sunny, amazing day.

I got to Salzburg at about ten in the morning and I made my way to my hostel, where I had to fight my way through three large English tour groups about to depart for some sightseeing. Salzburg seems to be the city of tours: you can go on a Sound of Music tour, a Mozart tour, tours of the salt mines (whence Salzburg gets its name: “Salz” means “salt” auf Deutsch), tours of ice caves, tours of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (which is actually in Germany, but still very near to the border), and a “Private Deer Finding” tour (which I saw advertised with a picture of two people sitting in the snow, watching deer—no idea what the draw is there.)

Anyways, because Austria turned out to be much more expensive than originally planned, I skipped all the guided tours (alas! I didn’t get to reenact Maria’s running over green slopes while bellowing “The Hills Are Alive”) but I did do lots of wandering around and took lots of pictures. I have to say, I am a sucker for kitsch, and I definitely have to go back to Salzburg and do all the things I didn’t do this time. 1) I didn’t go into Mozart’s Birth House, 2) I didn’t have coffee at the Café Tomaselli, 3) I didn’t go into the Felsenreitschule rock stage, where the Von Trapps gave their moving concert before popping over the mountains to get to Switzerland, a mere 250 miles away.

But I really did have a lovely day, and I really, really love Sound of Music (no matter the fun I’m poking at it now) and I’ll most likely have to go on a Sound of Music tour sometime in my life. My favorite things by far: 1) Exploring the city center, 2) Going to a free, midday organ concert, 3) Hiking up the hills that border the city center and wandering through the woods, overlooking the city, 4) Listening to the choir singing Christmas carols (yes, and “As the Deer”) in front of the Cathedral

I ate dinner alone at an Indian restaurant, where everything was labeled “bio” (Biotea, Biorice, Bionaan), and I crashed at the hostel, getting up in time for a mid-morning flight out of the Salzburg airport. I got back to Mallorca and heard about the nationwide transportation strike that had started the afternoon of the day I left—oh! I forgot a really important part of my story! Apart from the unannounced, impending strike, I almost didn’t make it off of Mallorca. My alarm clock decided not to go off—it was on, I swear, and set for 5:30am, NOT pm—and so I missed the bus. My sainted roommate drove me the 45 minutes to the airport before turning around and driving the 45 minutes back to work so that I could make my flight. She was scheduled to fly out to Barcelona in the evening, but the strike started about midday on Friday, so she didn’t get out until Sunday. Thanks to me, she made at least 4 trips to the airport that weekend. Of course, my alarm clock WAS on, and I guess I left it on in the rush to get ready after getting up late, and it proved its being on (and its capriciousness) by going off this morning at 5:30am. Karma. I did bring back gifts from Innsbruck’s Christkindlmarkt (Christmas market), though, to thank my wonderful roommate.

OH! Totally forgot that I got the whole pat-down (grope-down) in the Salzburg airport. A very important part of my experience. I can sleep soundly in my bed tonight, knowing Europe is safe.

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To see photos from my five days of heaven in Austria, here’s the link to the 1^st facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050908&id=65202311&l=ef1ad41957

And then the facebook album of pure Salzburg: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050910&id=65202311&l=635e5e8219

austrian adventure: ankunft / arribada / llegada / arrival

December 6-8 was a holiday through all of Spain, so I naturally took that opportunity, combined with my usual 3-day weekends, to take off. Also naturally, the airport people went on strike—luckily my flight left before the entire transportation system in Spain went under.

I went to Austria to visit two friends, Andi and Heidi, who are both living in Innsbruck at the moment. I had a layover in Köln (Cologne)—a beautiful airport. If you can manage it, try to get a layover in Köln—and then flew into Munich.

It was oddly familiar as I ran through the Munich train station to catch a train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where I was going to change trains to Innsbruck…last summer, I was in Munich visiting Rebekah Shraeder, and I went with a group of her friends up to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for a day. We waited and waited in the Munich train station for her friend and his brother to show up, and when they did, we had to run to catch the next train. It turned out that they’d been caught Schwarzfahr-ing on the U-Bahn (riding without a ticket on the subway) and they had to wait for the controller to write them a ticket and charge them the €200 (or whatever the fine happened to be—I don’t remember now). That was a bad day for those brothers. That night, after getting back from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, we all hung out in Rebekah’s apartment for a long time. The brothers left extremely late, and it turned out that the night bus had already stopped running. They got into some sort of argument, and one brother decided to walk back to Rebekah’s apartment, and the other slept in a U-Bahn station, waiting for the first subway to start running. Of course, he got arrested and ticketed for something, being a bum, I guess, and he had to pay another fine, if I remember right. As I said, not a good day. We had an excellent day in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, though! But that’s another story.

As I got into Innsbruck a couple hours later, it started to snow. Big, fat, juicy snowflakes—YES!! I started humming “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas…” I was definitely in the right town (make that, in the right country) for being in the Christmas spirit: Christmas markets, Glühwein, Krampus… read on, Macduff!

Andi Schwab (last year’s language assistant in Linfield’s German department) met me at the train station, showed me his apartment, and from there, we set off with a group of his friends to a Glühwein stand. Glühwein is, in essence, pretty nasty mulled wine, but it sure warms your innards on a cold winter evening. It was -10º! (Ok, Celcius. Still, it was in the teens in Fahrenheit, and that’s pretty darn cold, especially when yours truly brought no winter clothes to Europe…) After a couple of mugs of Glühwein, we went into a pub to thaw noses and toes, and to have a beer. I had some really good conversations with Andi’s friends and Andi’s girlfriend (who came to Linfield in May—such a nice person! I joked that I only ever saw her in pubs. She was at Linfield for the seniors’ bar crawl, and we spent many hours in McMenamin’s; now, we were meeting again, in one of Innsbruck’s pubs.) I got lots of good German practice in!

It was a bit déjà vu hanging out with Andi’s friends, because they’re all from the Austrian region of Vorarlberg, which has such a strong dialect that it’s almost a separate language from German. They all talked to each other in “Vorarlbergish” and all remarks directed at me were in High German (Standard German). It was almost exactly like being on Mallorca, where all life around me happens in Mallorquí, and my involvement is in Castilian (“regular” Spanish). Sorry about the digression into languages—I seem to be a bit like my friend Lily Niland, who is in Perú right now. In all her blogs, she writes about language and baseball. In all my blogs, I write about language and touristy things—it’s what interests me! (Lily, I love reading your blog with your nihoñol and béisbol stories!)

Anyway, back to the flow of events: I crashed at Andi’s apartment that night. The next day, Andi went skiing (next time I go to Innsbruck, I’m bringing my ski gear and a wad of cash ready to blow on the slopes) and I explored around Innsbruck. I went into a couple of fascinating museums—I love museums!—and bought myself a pair of gloves to combat the onset of frostbite. Best €17 I’ve ever spent. In the afternoon, I caught a short train to Hall in Tirol, a nearby town where Heidi Herzog (the language assistant in the Linfield German department before Andi) is currently helping out in a small store. It was really nice to chat and catch up with Heidi—when we were at Linfield, I hardly ever saw her outside of class and I didn't really know her. These few days were a great time for me to actually talk to Heidi and get to know her as a person, and not just a language instructor. I keep wondering about my students here—do they actually see me as a teacher? Or just as an American who really doesn't know what she's doing, but is having a good time trying? I guess my students that I've met at the bar in town might have a different outlook than the rest...but that's a WHOLE nother story.

In the evening, I went back to Andi’s apartment, where a “small gathering of a couple people” was in full swing. I met lots more of Andi’s friends, and we ended up having a lot more Glühwein and playing a game called Activity, which combines Taboo, Pictionary, and charades. I, as the lone, stuttering American, was given easy cards—or, at least, cards where I could actually understand the German word that I was supposed to act out, explain, or draw—and I’m happy to say that our team won.

The next day, Heidi and I went to her parents’ house just outside Saalfelden, about two hours away from Innsbruck. Almost as soon as I walked in the door, Heidi’s mom offered me gingerbread cookies and apple schnapps. Aaah, I felt right at home! I immediately settled down on one of their amazingly cushy couches and fell asleep.

I woke up for an amazing lunch—bratwurst, käsekrainer (another kind of sausage), and a knödel (a lovely kind of dumpling) in a creamy chanterelle sauce. Home-cooked food at its finest. And, that came with homemade apple juice! They have an apple tree on their property, and in the fall they picked the apples, pressed them, and made the freshest, most delicious juice imaginable. Ashley Bennett, another former Linfield student, actually helped pick the apples when she visited Heidi earlier this year—thanks, Ashley, for all your hard work! I sure enjoyed it.

Actually, it was thanks to Ashley that I went to Austria during this break—December 6^th is a big day in German-speaking countries, because that is the day that St. Nicholas visits the kids. (On December 24^th, the Christ Child, das Christkind, is the one who comes with all the presents.) In central Austria, specifically around Saalfelden where Heidi grew up, there is another tradition that happens on December 5^th or 6^th: the Krampuslauf. Krampus is a devil-figure that used to have some sort of pagan significance, but was taken up by the church as a symbol of evil. So, during a Krampuslauf (“Krampuslauf” could almost be translated as a “Krampus Parade,” but it’s more like a mad running in front of and around the various Krampus figures… “Running of the Krampuses”?) both the figures of Krampus and St. Nicholas are present—St. Nick, to remind people of good, and Krampus, to remind them of evil. I actually have no real explanation to present—it is one of the creepiest Christmas traditions I’ve ever seen. When Heidi was teaching at Linfield a couple of years ago, she showed a video showing lots of devil-figures running around holding flaming torches and beating people with chains. (This is a beloved tradition.) And then Heidi explained to us that there were jails in the town squares. We were very confused, and Heidi asked, “Who do you think they put in the jails?” The answer? The women and children. Duh. The Krampuses run around and drag people, kicking and screaming, into these large cages… I’m making it sound terrible, but the Austrians around where Heidi live seem to love it. I was more bewildered than anything, so of course, when Ashley reminded me of our captivated confusion about Krampus, I wanted to come to Austria during this magical time of the year to see the crazy event!

Here’s a Colbert Report video that sort-of explains the Krampuslauf (thanks again, Ashley, for the link) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/258162/december-09-2009/the-blitzkrieg-on-grinchitude---hallmark---krampus

And below is my rather silly video of the evening: we started off at Zell am See, but the Krampuslauf was actually contained behind ropes and there were security people guiding the Krampus figures around (no chain-beatings this year) and Heidi declared that it was like a “sleeping pill,” so we went to the town of Almdorf to try and find a wilder Krampuslauf. All in all, it was a good introduction to the mysterious tradition of the Krampus, but I was still left bemusedly clueless.

Stay tuned for photos and the end of my short stay in Austria.

mallorcan gems

As I walked through town this afternoon to buy snacks for my trip to Austria tomorrow—I'm visiting Heidi Herzog and Andi Schwab, two erstwhile language assistants in the Linfield German department—I saw the most beautiful sunset. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me, but Mallorca isn't lacking in beautiful sunsets. Here is a series of photos that I took about a month ago from the kitchen window:

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Utterly unrelated, but still interesting:

At the end of my previous post, I started a list of useful phrases that I´ve picked up since arriving. Here are a few more gems:

te sabe mal / et sap greu : please, would you mind. In Ecuador, they say "no seas maldita, hazme el favor..." which literally means, "Don't be evil, do me a favor..." Here, the common phrase is "¿te sabe mal...?" ("et sap greu...?" in catalan) which, translated word-for-word, means "Does it know you poorly?" or "Does it taste bad to you?" or something like that. It's the equivalent of the English, "Would you mind?..." (fill in the blank with what you want the person to do.) The real-life example that I heard: "Et sap greu deixar-me això?" (Would you mind leaving this with me?)

me has pillado : you got me! I was talking with a coworker from the school who was telling me about Carlos Moyá, a famous tennis player from Mallorca who is retiring. The only other famous tennis player from Mallorca that I've heard of is Rafa Nadal, who I learned about this summer: when people on my guided hikes at the LSR this summer (see at the workplace) learned that I was going to Mallorca, lots of people mentioned "that gorgeous Rafa Nadal." So, in order to expand my cultural learning, I asked my coworker who else was famous from Mallorca. "Erm... ara no sé...Jeni, me has pillado!" (Uh...at the moment, I don't know... Jeni, you got me!) "¿Me pillas?" is exactly how Ecuadorians say, "¿Me cachas?" in a conversation to check if the other person understands: You following me? You got me?

jolines : frick, darn, shoot. The nice form of "joder" or "jódete" --look those up in a dictionary; this is a family-friendly blog :) The kids, especially in the high school, use both the polite(ish) and not-utterable-in-church forms of this interjection.

ir de marcha / anar de marxa : to party. Literally: "to go on the march." Ecuadorian equivalent: farrear. A very useful phrase. Lots of words have X's in them in mallorquí, by the way. It's pronounced either "sh" or "ch", depending on the word. The word for "net" as in "internet?" Xarxa. "to talk"? Xerrar. My boss's name? Xisca.

el tió de Nadal caga regals : ok, so this isn´t exactly an everyday phrase. However, in my online catalan-learning course, this phrase popped up and it seemed share-worthy. For Spanish speakers, read the following explanation: "Diem que el tió caga regals, perquè el considerem un ésser viu (cagar, normalment, significa "fer excrement sòlid.")" In English: "We say that the Christmas tree shits presents, because we consider it to be a living being (shit, normally, means "to excrete solid waste.")"

the joy of teaching, or what i’m being paid to do here in spain

My two-month mark appears tomorrow! Now that I’m truly settled in and have my routine, it’s about time that I write about what I’m actually doing here in Spain: teaching.

I work in a secondary school (ages 11-18) in the town of Santanyí, which is the town that I live in, and I also work in an elementary school (ages 3-11) in the town of S’Alqueria Blanca, about 4K away. My schedule currently has me working two days a week in the elementary school and one day a week in the high school. Now you can see why I keep writing about my leisure time—I’ve got a lot of it! I’ll try to dedicate this post solely to the work aspect of this year abroad.

I love teaching. Unfortunately, I’m not actually teaching. I’m the teaching assistant, which means that in some classes I’m just an English-speaking mouth with a person attached, but in others I get to lead class and come up with activities and fun things to do. Also unfortunately, the English level is so low that I don’t feel like I’m getting very far with the kids.

The English I teach here is in no way conversational English. Imagine your high school Spanish class: no matter how advanced it was, could you ever have a discussion on the differences between North American and Latin American culture? Could you even have a decent conversation on the weather, or your health—the two most frequent and therefore among the most important conversations to master early on? I know I certainly couldn’t. The English in the schools here isn’t much more advanced than that.

In every class, I introduce myself, talk a little bit about where I come from, and open it up for questions. Usually (obviously) the kids have no questions until I remind them that unless they have questions, we’ll just have to go to the textbook and have class as usual. After miming out most of the sentence, the kids get the idea, and some of the weirdest questions come out. The “do you like” construction is very popular: (“Do you like babies?” “Do you like Avenged Sevenfold?”) Sometimes the kids branch out a bit: one kid came up with some very creative questions. “Why America conduction left?” and “How time where you?” were two of his more interesting queries.

Spanish-speakers: think about those for a bit. Conduction…conducción…conducir! (By the way: in Spain you definitely do not manejar un carro; you conducir un coche). So, with a bit of linguistic and geographical wizardry, the first question morphs into: “Why do they drive on the left-hand side of the road in England?” (the kids still can’t quite figure out that England and America are very different countries.) For the second question, just translate it directly back into Spanish: “How time… where you?” turns into “Cómo tiempo donde ti?” which obviously means “What’s the weather like where you live?”

A few other riddles for you: what do you think the common commands, “Stuff your chair!” and “Keep your rubber!” mean? These are two phrases the teachers often employ.

The first one can also be elongated as, “Stuff your chair under your table!” (need another hint? “table” is the word for “desk,” and the kids are told this when they all jump up like cooped-up monsters when it’s finally time for recess.)

For the second one, well… “rubbers,” of course, are perfectly innocuous, small items that every kid carries in his pocket. Quit thinking dirty thoughts—we’re talking about erasers! That’s perfectly British English, I guess. However, the verb “keep” usually is used to mean “put away,” which I’m pretty sure isn’t English from any English-speaking country. The longer version of the second command might be “Keep your rubber in your pencil case,” and the teachers usually say that when the kids start using their “rubbers” as ersatz bouncy-balls.

The kids are learning very weird English—or they’re learning English a very weird way. For example, for a recent lesson they had to repeat a dialogue, then act out the dialogue, then make a book by cutting out pre-made pictures with captions containing the dialogue, which goes like this:

Narrator: Texas Tom is sad.

Texas Tom: I don’t like horse riding. I’m not a real cowboy.

Sue Ellen: Come on, Tom, horse riding is fun!

Texas Tom: I don’t like horse riding.

Sue Ellen: Come on, Tom, horse riding is fun!

Narrator: Texas Tom rides Silver.

Texas Tom: OK. Wow, horse riding is fun!

Sue Ellen: Now you’re a real cowboy!

Then again, I remember dialogues from high school Spanish class that were also quite strange. For example, in one sentence, Paco says something like, “Mis pantalones están sucios. Voy a comprar nuevos pantalones.” (My pants are dirty. I’m going to buy new pants.) I suppose second-language learning never is real. Even while speaking in a second language, I somehow feel not-quite real. Lots of people say they have different personalities when speaking in different languages, but until I feel like I at least have some personality in Spanish, I’ll always wince when someone asks me if I’m fluent.

Whoa, that’s a completely different topic! Sorry, every day of teaching in English is another day that teaches me how much I have to learn! I need to learn more Spanish, and I really need to learn Mallorquín, or else I’m never going to progress socially. I’m just as stunted in my Mallorquín as these kids are in their English (I’ve whipped out a few phrases in Mallorquín, and I’m sure they sounded just like “How time?” to native speakers) and I understand their frustrations. I’m trying to be patient and to explain everything as clearly as I possibly can—the only thing that I can’t stand is when the kids are obviously not motivated. English is a required class from 4 years old until university graduation, and most kids hate it. I’m trying to come up with activities to make English seem like fun (see my previous post to see the Thanksgiving video that my friends made that I showed in all my classes—we discussed that video and talked about common foods and family traditions) and, poc a poc, we’re getting there.

Throughout this year, I’ll grow as a teacher, and I’ll keep trying to help the kids express themselves in English. This has been an awesome experience so far, and I’m excited to be here, teaching, for five more months!

***

PS: here are a few useful words and phrases that I've picked up since being here (1st word is in Spanish, 2nd is in Catalan)

ahora / ara : presently, sometime soon, within the next hour or so. When the teachers ask me, "Jeni, ¿véns ara?" they definitely don't mean "Jennifer, are you coming right now?" The first couple times the teachers have said this, I hopped up and said "yes, I'm coming now," and each time the teachers have said, "No, Jeni, tranquila. Ahora vamos," ("No, Jennifer, calm down. We'll leave ahora..." which means, more or less, "sometime soon.")

venga : come on, OK, goodbye. "Venga," as any student learning Spanish knows, is the formal command form or subjunctive form of "venir." In Latin America, the "usted" (formal) form is used quite often, and so you'll often here, "venga" to mean "You (formal) come here." In Spain, I've hardly ever heard anyone use "usted", and when I do, I'm always corrected. However, the word "venga" is used all the time. The most common form of "venga" is "Come on!" When the kids start making noise or quit paying attention or start playing with their neighbors, the teachers always shout, "Jesús, ¡venga!" or "Díaz, ¡venga!" "Venga" can also mean "OK," such as, "Jeni, ¿véns amb mi ara? venga, anem," (Jeni, are you coming with me sometime in the near future? OK, let's go,) But it is also used at the end of conversations to mean "Hey, I want to get off the phone now," such as the following telephone conversation I overheard: "OK, nos vemos a las dos, venga, hasta ahora," (OK, see you at two, goodbye, see you very shortly). I hear people use this word also when speaking in Mallorquín, but I'm not sure if it's spelled differently.

enhorabuena / enhorabona : Congratulations! I thought this meant "about time," because if you break it apart, it turns into "en hora buena" or "in good time", but people say it when somebody has a baby, or does something good at work, or at the beginning of the Thanksgiving potluck that I organized on Tuesday.

molt d'anys : Congratulations! Cheers! Happy Birthday! This literally means "many years" in Catalan, and people say it at the beginning of special meals, such as the Thanksgiving potluck I organized on Tuesday, and it's also the most common way to say "happy birthday".

thanksgiving abroad: cowboys, a diner, and real pumpkin pie

Yesterday I celebrated Thanksgiving like every other American: with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and some weird spinach thing that I wasn’t quite sure of. And, of course, real pumpkin pie. I went to an American diner in Palma with my roommate, an English teacher from the high school, her boyfriend, and a friend of theirs. The five of us met up at the diner and it was fantastic!

The décor was “authentic American,” they had assured me beforehand, and it really was. I felt right at home with the nice squishy black-and-white vinyl-and-chrome chairs.

And Blues Brothers statues.

The proprietress is apparently from Texas, and she decided to bring a bit of good American home cookin’ to Mallorca. The food was excellent (apart from the spinach) and was full of authentically tasty Thanksgiving goodness.

The meal! No rolls—we had Spanish-style bread—but the Heineken made up for it.

Me + my roommate + my colleague + her boyfriend = a great meal with friends!

The Thanksgiving dinner in Palma was a culmination of all the Thanksgiving activities that have been going on this week. My job as the language assistant is to A) speak English, but B) teach the kids about American culture, and I’ve been doing that by talking a LOT about holidays. Halloween is getting big here, so the kids all knew about that, but Thanksgiving is a bit of a confusing day. “’Tanksjiving?’ What is?” Thanksgiving—a day to GIVE THANKS—is a special day. We celebrate being together with friends and family. We think about what we’re thankful for. All American families get together on Thanksgiving, and we eat a lot! “¡Ah, mem, és es Dia d'acció de gràcies! Jeni, ¿es verdad lo del pavo? ¿Es como lo muestran en el cine?” (“Is it true about the turkey? Is it really like in the movies?”)

I assured them that Thanksgiving was just like it is in the movies, and yes, we eat TONS of turkey. I also explained the concept of Tofurkey, but since Tofu hasn’t made an appearance here, they were a bit confused. I think the elementary kids were confused about the whole thing. I tried to explain the story of “The First Thanksgiving,” which went something like this (accompanied by copious amounts of overexaggerated hand-symbols, of course) :

A long time ago, the Pilgrims left England to go to America. Who knows what a Pilgrim is? A Pilgrim is a person who travels, who goes, from one place to another. Lots of Pilgrims go to Santiago de Compostela every year. Do you know what Santiago de Compostela is? No, well, it´s a city in Spain where lots of people go. People walk a long ways to get to Santiago de Compostela.

The Pilgrims left England…no, Brais, they did not walk from England! Do you know where England is? Am I from England? No, Maria del Mar, I´m not from England! I´m from America. The Pilgrims got in a big boat and went over the sea to get to America.

OK, a long time ago, the Pilgrims left England to go to America. When they got to America, they didn´t know how to find food. They were very hungry. They had nothing to eat. The Indians, or the Native Americans, came and showed the Pilgrims how to plant food.

No, Macià, we´re not talking about Cowboys and Indians. What is a cowboy? What is a cow? Look, here´s a picture of a cow, under the letter V for Vaca. A cowboy is a boy who takes care of cows. When the Pilgrims came to America, there were no cowboys.

So, the Indians gave the Pilgrims food. Then, they had a big party. A big festival. A big holiday. They ate lots of food, and played lots of games, and this was the First Thanksgiving. OK, we´re going to make Pilgrim hats and Indian headdresses. Who wants to be an Indian? Who wants to be a Pilgrim? What, Tomeu, you want to be a cowboy? No, these are not cowboy hats. We’re not talking about cowboys. These are Pilgrim hats. Tomeu, do you understand what a Pilgrim is?

(Tomeu gleefully shouts, “Cowboy!”)

For the elementary kids, the actual “English language” part of their English lesson went a bit south, but they sure had fun making the Indian headdresses. (Thoughts of political correctness kept flitting through my head as the kids reenacted war cries.)

For the older kids, we could actually talk a little more about what Thanksgiving means to the average American. I had asked some friends back in the states to make short videos of themselves explaining their special Thanksgiving traditions for the kids, and some of them went all out and made a fantastic video of themselves having a Thanksgiving dinner! (see it below. It’s hilarious.) Before showing the video in the high school, I explained it a bit to the kids, and afterwards, one girl asked me in Spanish, “But, Jeni, where are you in the video?” I’m here! My friends made this video for me and for you guys last week. They had a “fake Thanksgiving” meal in order to make a video of it and send it to me, here. I’m here in Spain with you guys, and they are in America. “But, Jeni, you are no…triste?” Am I sad to not be there? Well, a little. This is a very special day all over America, and I am not going home. But I’ll be home for Christmas, so it’ll be all right.

In truth, I was sad. Especially because right after that wonderful class, I had a class where the kids couldn’t sit still and wouldn’t shut up and they talked through the entire video, and afterwards when we did an exercise where I asked all the kids what they were thankful for, most kids just said, “Nothing” and they rolled their eyes. Just like a character in an Amy Tan book I read recently, I had to keep reminding myself that even teenagers have souls.

Going to the diner in Palma was a perfect way to remind myself that Thanksgiving can be special anywhere—with old friends and new friends, in my aunt and uncle’s house or in an American diner in Spain. What matters is remembering everything we have to be thankful for, and celebrating it with the people we love. And eating lots of turkey, of course :)

If this video doesn't work, try this link to Ali's Facebook videos: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=536552123733

castilla y león: the most spanishy bit of spain

To continue celebrating my November of 4-day weekends, I went to Castilla y León to visit Linnaea Cunha, a fellow Linfield ’10 grad, and to see “castilla y leony stuff,” as she put it. Castilla was one of the kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula before Spain was Spain. Isabella of Castilla married Ferdinand of Aragón (together known as “the Catholic monarchs,” these were the people who finished off the Reconquista, started the Inquisition, and gave Columbus money for his harebrained adventure to India), and Spain was born. Linnaea works in a small town called Arévalo, and seeing it made me very happy about the small town that I was placed in! No offense to Arévalo, but it’s very spread out, and unfortunately we didn’t have time to actually see the old part of town, so I’m basing my opinion purely on the new bits that I saw. Santanyí feels much cozier, and is a whole heck of a lot warmer, than Arévalo. It was freezing there! When we went to Segovia, it actually snowed for a few minutes.

My dad shoveling off the cars at home—I’ve gotten soft if I whine about a few minutes of snowfall!

I crashed at Linnaea’s place for the first night, and the next day we set off for the mountains. We wanted to go hiking somewhere, and Linnaea’s Spanish roommate suggested Béjar, which is surrounded by mountains and has something called the “Jardín el Bosque”. Unfortunately, connections from one small Spanish town to another are usually terrible, and we didn’t get into Béjar until 2pm, right as the tourist office closed. So, we did the next best thing: found some old men to ask for suggestions on hiking trails. Since we got there so late, we only had a few hours to hike, and they suggested going down by the river. We wandered through Béjar and eventually found signs for the “Jardín el Bosque” (the place recommended by Linnaea’s roommate), but that, too, was closed. Asking more random people for directions, we found our way down to the river and started off on a path. It was awesome!

The Río Riofrío: the River Cold River, or the Cold River River.

A dozen or so textile mills had been built along the now-canalized Cold River River, and for some reason, they have all been abandoned and have fallen into disrepair.

Béjar has added a concrete walkway and interpretive signs, so Linnaea and I wandered along the old millrace.

All too soon, we had to leave Béjar and take a bus back to Arévalo. It was a neat little town, but I would definitely visit it A) with a rental car, B) with a map in hand, C) with non-leaky shoes, and D) not in the rain.

***

The next day, we set off bright and early to take a train to Ávila, and then take a bus from there to Segovia. The bus ended up being sold out, so we spent the day in Ávila and arranged to take a later bus into Segovia, which worked out well. Ávila has a gorgeous old city surrounded by an immaculately restored wall. We explored the cathedral, climbed the walls, and spent lots of hours ducking in and out of cafés trying to keep warm while we waited for the bus to Segovia.

Eventually we caught our bus into Segovia, whose old city and aqueduct are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Segovia at last! The aqueduct.

One of Linnaea’s co-teachers used to work in Segovia, and she gave us the email of a fellow American who is in his second year as an English language teaching assistant. He met us at the bus station and took us directly into town to have a drink. A couple other Americans who are just starting out this year with the program joined us, as well as one of his friends from Portugal. It was so much fun to relax and hang out with new people! No matter how much I love Santanyí, it has 0 nightlife and 0 inhabitants between the ages of 18-30. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it hard to meet people in Santanyí, whereas in Segovia, where we had instant new friends.

There was an international film fest going on, so we went to go see a Czech film that someone had picked off a list at random, and it was indeed very random. Take lots of cutout animation (think: Monty Python style) and naked people with chickens for heads, mixed in with a storyline about an Oedipus complex and dream interpretation, while being partly dubbed and partly Czech with Spanish subtitles, and you get two hours of creative confusion. After that movie, we needed another drink.

Segovia, as with the rest of Spain, doesn’t really start the night until midnight. After getting out of the movie, the party was in full swing. We squeezed into a bar, had a drink (which comes with free tapas! I don’t know where Mallorca went wrong—none of the tapas are free, and none are all that good, here) and then followed the packs of Spanish people out and went to a restaurant famous for its house wine. Apparently people are in a permanent pub-crawl state, so when that restaurant emptied, we went into another bar, found a table in the back, and had one more drink.

After getting up far too early after a night out, we hit the streets of Segovia again, and explored at our leisure.

Segovia's Alcázar

Aqueduct again

Because I’m not a partier by any means, I am delighted to live in a small town devoid of nightlife, but hanging out in Segovia at night with a fun group of new people was definitely a highlight of my trip. I have made it a goal to push myself here in Santanyí to get to know people—although new friends don’t just fall into my lap here, the people are friendly and all I need to do is make an effort. It’s a bit daunting to be in a group of people who only speak Mallorquín (the dialect of Catalán that is spoken on Mallorca—see lovin’ languages) but I’m going to keep trying my darndest to understand Mallorquín and to break into conversations even when I’m really not sure what’s going on. Sitting quietly in the back is a great skill for not being noticed, but not a good one for making friends. My list of new-friend-making techniques are as follows:

A) go to the one café-bar that Santanyí offers and listen to the live music on Saturday nights. The live music happens to be played by the high school philosophy teacher’s band

B) hang out with the philosophy teacher

C) listen to the computer tech teacher’s suggestion that I find hiking/outdoorsy groups

D) figure out how to find hiking/outdoorsy groups, and then find them

E) find out if anyone in Santanyí is registered under www.CouchSurfing.com, and contact them to see if they want to go out and have a cup of coffee

F) ditto for www.LiveMocha.com

G) next Tuesday, I’m having a “Thanksgiving potluck” at the elementary school. It’s not actually that exciting—all the teachers always eat at the school on Tuesdays—but I’m starting off with my proactive-friend-making plan right now. I wanted to host a Thanksgiving party at my house, but there are far too many teachers to cram in here, so we’re just doing it the easy way. Today, the teachers remembered that I’d mentioned the potluck, so we started a list of who wanted to bring what, and lots of people actually seemed excited!

Wish me luck on my friend-making endeavors! And if you want to see more photos of my adventures in Castilla y León with a good, old friend (being one Linnaea Cunha), then go to: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050519&id=65202311&l=a5040f9c97

chillin' with old friends and new

Hey all,

Just a quick update before lunch: I had a lovely weekend hanging out with Ms. Hannah Michelotti, who is working as an au pair in Belgium. I went to visit her in October, and she returned the favor by coming to Spain! On Saturday morning, we went to the market in Santanyí, where we got veggie goodies to make pasta, and Hannah bought herself a scarf.

We hit the beach in the afternoon, which was fabulous. It was sunny and warm, and we had the entire beach to ourselves. Cala d'Or looked like a ghost town! In comparison to my first week of being there (see tourist heaven) it really was heavenly. Well, at least the empty-beach part. The empty town was a little weird. When we got back to the apartment, we drank Spanish wine, watched episodes of Modern Family (a very funny show that Hannah has just introduced me to) and cooked up our pasta delight.

On Sunday, Sofia (my roommate) invited the neighbors over for a late breakfast. Sofia made homemade crepes, and we happily gorged ourselves. The neighbor is due to have a baby in early December, and it was the first time I'd really gotten to talk to her and her husband. Their 4-year-old son, Sebastià, ran around the house the entire time, excited to have new people to show off to. He was so cute! It was a nice, relaxing breakfast, and when they left two hours later, the neighbor promised to make his famous paella and invite us over another time.

In the early afternoon, I saw Hannah off with specific instructions on how to get to the airport. It's always strange to wave goodbye; it was a lovely weekend with lovely people!