The one where I booked trips to Ireland, Barcelona, Italy, tutored two little Spanish boys, and my fabulous aunt visited me from London

Greetings!

I apologize that it has been so long since I’ve written.  The busy part of the semester is approaching.  I also signed up for many activities in the beginning of the semester that I have been very busy with for the past week.  I know I’ve said this before, but this post may be the most random post so far. There’s just so much to say, and I already know that I will be forgetting to mention important things.

I have been doing a lot of exploring of Toledo with friends.  The other day (well actually this was about two weeks ago now), I went with friends to six of Toledo’s important historical monuments.  It was really neat to learn that Toledo’s history is unique in that is has one of the longest periods of peaceful coexistence between three cultures.  I found it fascinating that even though I am in one city, I could walk around and feel like I’m in many places since the Christians, Moors, and Jews lived in such close proximity when they shared Toledo as their homes.  My favorite stop on our scenic tour was the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes.  It was beautiful to say the least; however, learning the history behind the monastery is what really stuck with me.  My friends and I decided to sit in the pews for a while to take it all in, and when I looked up I saw a rather large Pikachu balloon.  After exploring many museums and monuments, we felt that we deserved a little dessert.  At this very moment, I tried my first chocolate with churros at café de las monjas (the nun café).  Notice how they are called chocolate with churros….this probably has to do with the fact that they gave me a huge cup of steamy, creamy, milk chocolate.  This chocolate was so good that I didn’t even mind when I got the bill, the chocolate was double the price of the churros.  Interestingly enough, my favorite part of the café de las monjas was not the chocolate with churros.  My favorite part was the cute little old lady who worked there.  She struck up a conversation with my friend and I.  She gave us a hug and pinched my cheeks (very hard) when we left the restaurant.  After this, my friend and I went on a hunt for the most authentic marzapan in Toledo since she is heading to Germany and wants to torture her German friends with a few samples of marzapan that they obviously cannot eat every day like I do.  We scored! We stumbled upon a little marzapan shop owned by a married couple in Toledo.  They run the business together and wake up everyday at 4am to make fresh marzapan for the day.  And to end this day, I’m pretty sure my friends and I are extras in a Spanish T.V. series that was being filmed in Toledo.  Since we did some serious hiking through the city, we seemed to accidentally run into the heart of the action when they were filming at many of our destinations.  I told my family to keep an eye out when watching tv ;)

  

For the past two weeks, I have been meeting with my language partners.  Since there were more Spanish locals in need of language partners that weren’t able to find an American student at the awkward mingling dinner, I signed up to have two language partners.  It has been working out great.  Elisabeth is my younger intercambio in her lower twenties and Ruth is my other intercambio in her upper twenties.  Elisabeth works at a bank in Madrid and Ruth works with students with intellectual disabilities.  I think I am able to easily understand Ruth because she has such a smooth, calm voice.  They are both such warm girls.  Ruth even invited me to travel to Granada, Spain (which happens to be the one trip I really want to go on, but didn’t think would be possible).  Of course I will be in Ireland that weekend. Oh well, it was still so thoughtful of her.  For our next meeting, we are planning on getting together to cook up a Spanish feast.  I had a funny encounter after my meeting with my intercambio.  I was walking my intercambio back to her house since it was on the way to my bus stop to head home, and I heard a man’s voice call my name.  Well, it sounded similar to my name (pronounced: AlEEEEEsa -  stress the EEE).  I turned around to see my host dad Manolo standing outside of Pimkie which is a store full of fashionable girl clothes.  He took my host sister shopping wth my host mom.  She told me that he had been waiting in the store entrance since they got there, waiting for something (anything) exciting to happen.  He proceeded to tell me that they had been shopping in that tiny store for over an hour, but my host mom quickly asserted that they couldn’t have been there for over 15 minutes.  My host family picked out a scarf that they bought me.  It was quite a family debate about which scarf they should buy me, but my host mother ultimately decided to get me a very chunky blue scarf.  At the rate I’ve been buying scarves, I think I will have to wear 4 at once on the plane ride home to have space in my suitcase!

So I don’t bore you with so many details, here is a list of my life in Spain:

1.)   Great news! My host family has told me that they overheard me sleep talking in SPANISH!!!  Made my day

2.)   Manolo (my host dad) is now my personal guitarist.  He played classical Spanish songs on his guitar while I did my homework.  I have a few videos to share if I could ever figure out how to do so

3.)   My family gave me permission to answer the house phone when it rings and they are not home.  And as soon as they gave me this responsibility and headed out the door, there I was alone in the house with a ringing phone.  I don’t mean to be dramatic, but it is much more difficult for me to understand Spanish over the phone.  I worked up my courage and ended up having a conversation with Manolo’s good friend.  When I told him I was from Wisconsin, he told me that he had recently traveled to Appleton, Wisconsin of all places!

4.)   I skyped my family in the United States the other day, and they were eating dinner BEFORE me! 7 hours behind Spain and they ate BEFORE me (and quite a while before me too). I couldn’t believe it!

5.)   After not making any travel plans for the first month of my study abroad experience, I now have confirmed plans to visit Ireland, Barcelona, and Pisa.  Miraculously, every little detail came together (and very cheaply to add).  I will be heading to Cork, Ireland with my friend Laura to visit SNC friends for Thanksgiving.  On October 27^th, Laura, Meg, and I will be taking an overnight bus to Barcelona.  We will arrive in Barcelona at 7:35 am.  From Barcelona, we will fly to Pisa, Italy and take a train to Florence, Italy to visit other SNC friends.  I am still processing the fact that I am actually going to Ireland and Italy and that so many of my friends are in these countries at the same time!

6.)   My complete travel wish list is as follows:

*Italy

*Ireland

*Prague

*Barcelona, Spain

*Pilgrimmage of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

*Granda, Spain

All of these trips sounded pretty reasonable and doable except Prague.  However, I am thrilled to say that I will be heading to Prague, Czech Republic to visit Czech-mate (Vaclav) on December 8^th. I’ve heard that Prague is beautiful at Christmas time.  I should be purchasing my ticket tomorrow. 

7.)   My host mom bought my baby sister Emma a present. My host mom found the flamenco dress that I bought for my sister and surprised me with matching shoes.  So generous!

Goodness, I apologize for the length of this blog post.  I will not be offended if you honestly do not care about my baby sister’s shoes.  I just don’t like to forget things J

I am in a service learning course where we are learning about the immigrant experience in Spain since Spain has the second highest immigration rate after the Untied States.  For this course, I help teach English in a local school to 1^st, 3^rd, and 5^th graders for two hours each Wednesday.  I had my first day last week and it was quite the experience.  First, as an education major I was really tuned into the way in which the teachers interacted with the students and vice versa.  All of the children were great kids.  I got the impression that the teachers do not have issues with unruly individual students.  However, as a whole the students were very loud.  I don’t mean to say that they were being purposefully disrespectful or unruly, I think they do not have the same understanding of raising their hands to talk or waiting their turn to talk.  Also, the teachers are very loose and do not seem to practice typical classroom management skills that I am used to seeing.  They are not bad teachers, it was simply interesting to observe the different cultural approach to education.  If I were these students, I would be exhausted by the end of the day since they are constantly competing for the teacher’s attention with their voices.  They all had good and important things to say; however, they all feel the need to say it at the same time.

I started off in third grade and introduced myself.  I told them about my life in the United States and my favorite food, color, etc.  Next, the teacher handed out paper for them to draw me and include details after I described myself.  The teacher gave me the drawings to keep, and I took them out to look at them on my bus ride home.  At first, I was surprised to see that the first drawing had me with a word bubble saying “My name is Alyssa and I’m a multi-millionaire.” I didn’t recall mentioning anything about finances.  I was even more surprised to see the next picture that had a car that the student indicated to be made out of gold.  I received many drawings like this. 

I also started a job where I tutor two boys in English (7 and 10 yrs. old) on Mondays for an hour.  It was such a great experience! Their parents picked me up from my school to take show me the way to their house.  After tutoring the boys, they insisted that I ate dinner at their darling house. Honestly, they have the most home-y house.  We ate super salty meats and cheeses and finished the meal off with homemade chocolates with almonds (can life get any better?).  Also, they have a fat white cat named Pixie who likes to take naps in the garage on the dad’s (Mario) moped.  They are a great family. Mario is actually a local tour guide for Toledo, so between him and Monolo I am set for any Spanish history exam!  We finished the night off playing jamón (Spanish word for ham).  Jamón is the equivelant of the American H-O-R-S-E  basketball game.  I headed home and my family was eating dinner when I got home.  They said they knew I would be back to eat since they made Mexican tacos! How could I resist? I hope this 2-dinner Monday deal does not become a routine.

The two boys I tutor (Mario and Alberto). Mario is the one with half a head

And for the greatest news of all….my auntie Sue visited me this past weekend from London! I think I may need to have a separate future post about this trip.  It was such a special trip. 

Highlights:

1.)   We stayed in the most beautiful house in the old part of my Toledo!  It was my first time waking up in the true city of Toledo.  Unfortunately, I did not get up early enough for sunrise but I feel like I saw it after listening to my aunt describe it.

2.)   Life slowed down with my auntie Sue’s visit.  We had time to sit and talk for hours in the famous hammock room and catch up since we hadn’t seen each other since last January.

3.)   And I thought I had found all the hidden gems of Toledo…ya right!  Together we found the most amazing (and cheap of course) bakery called Benipan where I had my first  (of many) pan de chocolate.  I also took my Auntie Sue to Café de las Monjas where she had her first chocolate with churros.  The cheek-pinching lady was not there that day L

4.)   We went to Europe’s biggest flea market in Madrid and scored BIG time! Let’s just say I am almost done Christmas shopping.  I went to the flea market prepared to haggle (I think haggled is the right word?) prices since I saw a video about this exact flea market and everyone haggled the prices.  Everything was SO cheap though. I purchased a scarf for 2 Euros and a Cristiano Renaldo jersey for 12 Euros!

5.)   We went to the Parque de Retiro In Madrid. The leaves were starting to change colors there.  This was a happening park, yet very peaceful.  I don’t think I saw one person who didn’t seem to be having a good time.

6.)   We saw Pablo Picasso’s famous painting “Guernica” which depicts the brutality of the Spanish civil war.  Powerful.

7.)   To end our weekend, my host parents took my aunt and I on a nighttime tour of Toledo.  They took us to spots you would only know of if you lived in Toledo.  We got to see the luscious space where the cardinal used to live.  This truly completed my aunt’s Toledo experience since Manolo took us down thee narrowest Toledo street without question in his car.  The look on her face was priceless.

Café de las Monjas

Reading room of the house

Ahh the hammock room!

Living Room/ dining room

After the long hike

If you made it this far, you must really love me! ha! I miss you all very much.  I must go now because my host mom is telling me in Spanish “don’t work so hard Aleeessa!” 

Blessings from Spain,

Alyssa