Long time, no update!

So, I haven't been as good at updating my blog this time around as I thought I would be. It seems I'm either too exhausted after school to feel like writing, or I'm too busy out and about during the weekends to want to sit down and write.  That means this entry is going to be a run-down of the highlights of the past couple of weeks - and there have been a lot! I'll try to keep it to a manageable length.

Day-trip to Alcalá de Henares and medieval festival.  Two weekends ago we had a "puente" - or a long weekend - and we decided to take a day trip to Alcalá, a small town outside of Madrid founded during Spain´s Muslim era (Alcalá means "the castle" in Arabic).  Alcalá is also home to the 4th oldest university in Spain, which was founded by Cisneros in 1499.  We got a tour of the University, and our visit also happened to coincide with their Festival de Cervantes (Cervantes was born in Alcalá), which was essentially a medieval festival with a bunch of stalls selling food, jewelry, spices and tea, etc.  There was also an Arab section of the festival, where we enjoyed an authentic kebab for lunch, and where there was a guy doing people's names in Arabic calligraphy. Katie and I each bought our name in Arabic, and I talked to the guy a little bit in Arabic, so that was fun!  Alcalá was also one of two sites for the Tufts in Madrid program, and we met up with Sergio and Miguel Ángel, two of the guys who work for the program.  It was great to see them again and to catch up a bit.

The next weekend, I was invited out by some of the teachers at my school for dinner.  We went to a Greek restaurant in Tribunal, where part of the draw was the after-dinner Greek dance show.  It was me and four women who also teach at my school, all of whom have to be at least 35. But I had a great time - it was definitely a challenge to follow their rapid Spanish conversation in a loud, crowded restaurant with Greek music playing in the background.  And one woman, Guadalupe, was particularly difficult to understand, because of her Extremaduran (region in Western Spain) accent and because she spoke so fast!  It was a little disheartening to only understand about 50% of what she was saying after having spent over 4 months in Spain and studying Spanish for over 10 years.  It just goes to show how much work it really takes to be fluent in a language.  But we ate a ton of Greek food, and got to watch our waiters dance after dinner. Mariluz, one of my coworkers, got dragged up to dance with the waiters, and did a great job!  Then whoever wanted could go up and learn a traditional Greek dance and get to break a plate at the end (a lá "My Big Fat Greek Wedding").  All in all, a really fun night.

The day after my big fat Greek dinner, the Katies, Greg and I set out to do some exploring in Madrid.  We wandered around a market in Plaza de España for a while, and then walked to the Templo de Debod, an Egyptian temple in Madrid that was a gift from Egypt for Spain's help in the construction of the Aswan Dam.  We took some photos, meandered, and finally settled down in the adjacent park to relax, chat, and soak up the Spanish sun. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon, and it was great to be out in the city and enjoying the beautiful weather (it's been in the high 70s almost the entire time I've been here - better than this summer in Maine). 

Later that night (actually, early the next morning), Katie Rizzolo became a true Madrileña and enjoyed her first chocolate y churros after a night out in the city before we caught the metro home.  It was also my first chocolate y churros since returning to Madrid, and it was as good as I had remembered.

That brings us up to this week! At school, in my high school classes, I taught them about baseball, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, and English expressions that come from baseball (cover your bases, bat 1000, out in left field, etc.).  I think they had a good time with it, and I know I did. This next week, I'm going to be doing a lot of lessons about Halloween - any suggestions welcome!

Last night, Katie invited me to an outing with some of the teachers with her school.  We met up in Noviciado and had dinner (Argentinian pizza...is that a thing?), then went to a soul concert at this funky club called "El perro de la parte atrás del coche" - roughly translated as "the dog of the back part of the car."  The band was excellent, and the music was great - covers of Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, the Jackson Five, Diana Ross, and more.  The Spaniards loved that Katie and I knew almost all of the words to all of the songs.  And a lot of the teachers from Katie's school are in their 20s, so it was fun to meet them.  They were all really nice, and we had a great time - and they invited me to come out with them another day, so hopefully I'll see them again!  The best part of the night, though, was the mix of people there - while a lot of the teachers that came were in their 20s, there were also a couple of older women who came out with us, and who were rocking out in this club with us until midnight or so.  This is something I really love about Madrid - it's not unusual for people my parents' age, for example, to go out to a late dinner, or to a concert, and stay out until the wee hours of the morning.  Madrid is a hoppin' city for anyone.

Finally, today, Katie, Todd, and I decided to try out Madrid's teleférico, or cable-car.  It was a gondola-type thing that takes you from Argüelles over the Manzanares River to Casa de Campo, the enormous royal hunting ground-turned park in the western part of the city.  There were some pretty great views of the city and the sierra beyond.  I also had never been to Casa de Campo, which was an interesting place.  It's huge, and covered in bike and running paths, but not as cared-for as the better-known Retiro, and apparently frequented by prostitutes at night.  After getting off the teleférico, we walked around the park a bit, and found our way to the lake, which was actually pretty nice, and surrounded by little cafes.  We sat down, enjoyed a tinto del verano, and had a couple of tapas.  Then, we walked back toward the city, back over the river, and finally through La Latina. Another lovely Saturday afternoon out in Madrid!  I'm hoping to explore a different part of the city each weekend - and so far, so good. 

Well, that's it for now - I think my next update will be about some of the people I've met here, and my classes and students. So stay tuned!  Also, check out my photos from my various weekend excursions on my Picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/home?hl=en&tab=wq.

The first day of school, and just another reason to love Madrid

First off, you may notice that I've changed the name of my blog. I thought that "My Travels" wasn't really appropriate for this year, since it's more about me living and working in Madrid this time around. (Although I still do hope to do some traveling!)

Now to the good stuff: my first couple of days at school....

Overwhelming! But overall, good. I'll be working 25 hours a week (24 class hours and 1 hour of prep time). While this may not sound like a ton, because of the Spanish school schedule (which includes a roughly 2-hour break for lunch from 1-3), I actually end up being at my school for 8 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thurs day. Monday and Friday are a little easier - I'm only there in the morning. So the first couple of days have pretty much been me introducing myself to the students and having them ask me questions about myself, about the US, etc. I'm working with kids aged 8-16, though, so there is quite a range of English speaking ability. Overall, the kids were really enthusiastic, and actually participated a lot more than I had expected. They seemed pretty excited to have me there. And the teachers were also really welcoming. One of the English teachers is also new to the school, so he was really nice and kept assuring me that he was just as lost as I was (although I think he might have the advantage, being Spanish and all...). Overall, I think teaching is going to be more work than I might have anticipated, but I'm hoping I'll settle into a routine and start to figure out how to handle the different grade levels.

This weekend was a mix of relaxation and work. We finally got internet in our apartment on Saturday morning (yay!), so we've all been pretty much online constantly since then. The highlight of the weekend, however, was definitely Saturday night. Our friend Greg had told us that there was an opera playing at the Teatro Real (Royal Theater) that he really wanted to see, and that tickets were only 4 euro. I had never been to the opera, or the Teatro Real, so Katie R and I decided to go, and convinced Katie C to come with us. We met up with Greg down at the theater and bought our tickets (apparently you can buy last-minute discounted tickets at this theater if you're 26 years old and younger - the discount is 90%, so you only pay 10% of the original price). So we bought 43-euro tickets for 4.30 - just another reason to love Madrid.

Now, unfortunately for Greg, he got the date wrong on the opera performance - so the "opera" tickets we had bought were actually tickets to a flamenco dance performance, which we only realized when we took our seats and looked at the program. Also unfortunately for us, the male principle dancer had broken his ankle at a rehearsal the day before. Luckily, neither of those factors ruined the performance for us - it was absolutely amazing! I've seen flamenco shows before, but this was pretty different. About half of the numbers were the female principle dancer (María Pagés) dancing alone, accompanied by 2 guitarists, a male and female singer, and a couple of guys doing percussion/rhythm. The dancing was beautiful, and I was especially impressed by the two vocalists. The other half of the numbers were a group of 8 dancers, 4 male and 4 female, doing choreographed flamenco dances. The fact that all the dances were choreographed was interesting, because for me, I think a big part of flamenco is the spontaneity, and the freedom that allows the dancer to express what they're feeling right at that moment. And yet, that passion still came across, especially in the solo dances. So, even though we were expecting the opera, we were all blown away, and incredibly happy about our lucky mistake.

Tengo una corazonada

"Tengo una corazonada" - or, I have a feeling/ I feel it in my bones - is Madrid's slogan for it's campaign to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Yesterday, my two roommates and I met up with Todd and Greg, two other former Jumbos and English teachers in our program, and went to a huge rally in the city's central plaza - Cibeles - in support of Madrid's candidacy to host the Olympics. When we arrived, the amount of people there was already impressive, and the crowd eventually swelled to 250,000 (according to Spanish television). As you walked toward Cibeles, event coordinators were handing out pieces of colored paper - a different color for each street leading towards the plaza. My friends and I ended up in the yellow section. The crowd was being directed by an (apparently) famous DJ at the plaza's center, who would have the different colored sections raise up their papers one by one, or in unison, all the while shouting slogans like "Porque estámos preparados" (because we're prepared), "Porque lo merecemos" (because we deserve it), and "porque lo deseamos" (because we want it). In between shouted instructions and slogans, he played the latest in Spanish and American pop, including "I've got a feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas. The crowd also waved to the helicopter circling overhead, chanting "hola everyone."

The event culminated in one last coordinated movement by the crowd - this time, with an aerial photograph being taking by the helicopter. (Check out some photos from El País, one of Spain´s newspapers here: http://www.elpais.com/fotogaleria/Madrid/tiene/corazonada/6745-1/elpgal/). After the rally, there was a concert that featured David Bisbal (who apparently was the first person to win Spain's version of American Idol). We left before the concert started, though, as we had gotten hungry and decided it was time for some tapas.

Overall, a pretty amazing event, and one that truly demonstrates why Madrid would be a great city for the games. The citizens truly do want it – one poll reported that 98% of madrileños support hosting. And I honestly don’t know a friendlier, more entertaining, and easy-to-access city. Finally, Spaniards love their sports – Pau Gasol and the Lakers’ results make the news practically nightly here in Madrid; everyone is obsessed with their favorite futbol team, and Rafa Nadal is a national hero, so you know there would be plenty of enthusiastic fans at every event. While I’ve never been to any of the other candidate cities (Rio de Janiero, Tokyo, and Chicago), tengo una corazonada that Madrid would be the perfect place for the Olympics in 2016. Or at least that’s the feeling I’ve got.

P.S. Check out all of my photos from the event here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kate.fortin/Sept09Spain#

Bienvenida a Madrid!

Well, I'm here! I arrived on Tuesday, and the past few days have been a whirlwind of jet lag and apartment hunting. I won't give the blow-by-blow, but here are some of the highlights (and low-lights):

Katie's friend Martín met us at the airport and helped us schlep all of our luggage to our temporary apartment in Moncloa. Like a good macho español, he took 2 of our 4 suitcases. We were both so glad to have him there, because we probably wouldn't have been able to navigate the metro with all of our luggage without him. Gracias, Martín!

The next day, we began our apartment search. We called and set up appointments with some of the ads we had seen on the Spanish version of Craisglist, Loquo. After the first day, we had one possibility in mind - an apartment in Tribunal that we would share with 2 Italian guys. The apartment was pretty nice, and was one of the only ones we had seen in our price range with a decent-sized living room and bedrooms. We also saw some pretty dreadful apartments that day - the worst definitely being a top-floor "loft" in Lavapies. The "bedrooms" were up in the loft of this already tiny apartment, and consisted of a large space divided in 2 by a sheet, with mattresses on the floor.

Our apartment search continued the next day, where we had a frustrating near-miss with an apartment in Embajadores. The place was absolutely perfect - 2 bedrooms for rent, with a lovely living room, a nice kitchen, terrace, and entirely new furniture. However, just as we arrived and started to look through the apartment, a French girl who had visited the apartment earlier in the day called the landlady and said she would take one of the rooms. Since we weren't up for sharing a room, we pressed on.

And it's good that we did! We found the perfect apartment later in the day, in Legazpi. It's situated in a nice residential area, with plenty of stores nearby and easy access to the center of the city by metro (5 stops from Sol on línea 3, for those of you that know Madrid) and bus. The living room was the largest we'd seen, and gets a lot of sun. Three bedrooms (two smaller, one "master" bedroom with it's own bathroom), and a nice kitchen. The only problem was that the landlady wanted to rent out the apartment as a whole, so we would have to find a 3rd roommate. We left the apartment grinning, already thinking of ways to get that 3rd person. In the end, we decided to take the apartment in Legazpi, and we're moving in tomorrow! It will be nice to be able to unpack and start to make a home here in Madrid.

Other than the apartment search, I've been enjoying being back in Madrid. Katie and I have already hit up some of our favorite restaurants from last time, and found some new ones. I had forgotten how amazingly cheap good wine is here - a glass of Rioja at a bar one night cost me 1.75 euro (about $2.50). And last night was "La Noche en Blanco" (The Night in White, or something to that effect), a celebration of the arts and community. Most of the main roads in the center of the city were closed to traffic, and in different plazas and streets there were performances, installation art, etc. For example, in Plaza de España there was a hip hop concert, while at the Temlpo de Debod, there was a belly dancing performance. The museums were open all night, and there were stations set up around Plaza Santa Ana and Huertas where you could sit down with an artist, tell them your problems, hopes, or dreams, and they would interpret them in a drawing that you got to keep. It was a pretty amazing event, and the entire city came out to participate. For me, it was a great welcome back to Madrid, and a reminder of all the amazing art, performances, and cultural events that make this city a great place to live. It's good to be back!

Round Two

So I'm resurrecting my old study abroad blog for my next adventure: a year of teaching English in Madrid, Spain. I totally failed at posting any blogs from Spain last time I was there, and my posting from Egypt was pretty scant, but I have high hopes for this year for one reason: I'm planning on getting an apartment with internet.

I depart the US for Madrid on Monday, September 14th, and will arrive in Spain on the 15th. My soon-t0-be roommate Katie and I will be staying in a temporary apartment rental for a week while we look for permanent housing. I'll start my job as an "auxiliar de lengua inglesa" (English language assistant) in a Catholic school in Madrid on October 1st.

My goal is to post frequently this time around, pero vamos a ver!

Photos from Alex and Rashid

Here are some photos from around Alexandria and of my day trip to Rashid.

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062696&l=b5446&id=1707686

I realize I've been doing a terrible job of updating my blog recently, and I'm going to try to get a bit better for my last month or so here! So check back again soon for updates, in sha allah!

More Luxor and Aswan pictures...

Here are more of my pictures from Luxor and Aswan.

As usual, I have tons more, but they're from my new camera and the files are too large to upload.

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060266&l=461e7&id=1707686

Enjoy!