A Wonderful Day for the Rastro!

Today I went to the Rastro with my friend Samantha in search of yoga pants! I found two pairs and also some cheap nail polish! Gotta love the Rastro! : )

Zapatillas!

Tonight I went out for tapas with a few friends around Lavapiés. We started out the night at Café Bar Melos, where we had the house specialty, Zapatillas, bocadillos of lacón (cured shoulder of pork) and cheese--greasy, huge, and damn good! We got two for 10€ each and split them among 6 of us! It was delicious! I also had to try a croqueta because they were huge! And, as I imagined, delicious!!! I can see why this bar is always full! We were lucky and managed to get a table, but you definitely have to come early to beat the crowd! The owners are an older couple and I don't know how they keep track of all the orders, but they do an incredible job! I was very impressed!

After Cafe Bar Melo's, we went to Bodegas Lo Maximo and another Cuban-type Bar, but Melo's and their Zapatillas was definitely the highlight of the night!

Made my day!

Sometimes my students say the sweetest things! Today, Andrea, one of my thrid graders, told me, "Teacher, estás muy guapa hoy. ¡Así te echas un novio!"

Translation: "Teacher, you're very beautiful today! Like that you'll get a boyfriend!" : )

renewel application? check.

Today I handed in my materials to renew for another year--in Madrid! This was a really hard decision and I have thought a lot a lot about it, but I think that if I passed up the opportunity to stay in Spain another year, I would regret it down the road.

While sometimes it's lonely and I get homesick, there are also tons of positives: I know Madrid (and it's the CAPITAL!), I'm well communicated for traveling, I have a great flat/flatmate, I am improving my Spanish, I work with three other Auxiliares at my school, I make 1000€ a month, I know my school works and get along well with the teachers and students, and I also have my host family and my study abroad director here.

I'm looking forward to another year here in Madrid. I feel like it will bring a lot of good things. I'm not sure what my plan will be after that, but I'm content to take things one day at a time. When I'm home this summer, I plan on visiting a few grad schools in Minnesota, Michigan, and North Carolina, and then moving forward with my applications throughout the year so I can start working toward my teaching license when I return in 2012.

Los monólogos de la vagina

Tonight I went to see the Vagina Monologues--in Spanish--in a little cafe in Lavapiés called El Fin del Mundo, C/ Doctor Fourquet, 28 Madrid, 28012. I had watched the Vagina Monologues in my Sexualities class in college, so it was cool to see it performed live--and in Spanish! The bar was pretty cute, I'll definitely have to go back! And they gave us a little bowl of nuts with our drink orders, always a plus : )

Cuentacuentos en Café Libertad

Tonight I went to a Storytelling at Café Libertad with my study abroad director, the current study abroad students, and some of the host families. It was a cute little cafe and everyone was packed in like sardines to hear three storytellers tell stories about Desire. It was really interesting and really funny, but kind of racy too! Patricia, my study abroad director, brought her Spanish husband and their 15 year-old son, and she explained that Spanish kids are pretty far ahead of American kids when it comes to their exposure to sex/prostitution/negative influences, so material that may seem inappropriate for most American children is pretty acceptable here in Spain.

I definitely want to return for another cuentacuentos! But you need to get there at least a half hour early in order to get a table!

A Day of English in Aranjuez

Today I went with my friend Jackie (another Auxiliar) and a teacher from her school and her family for a daytrip to Aranjuez, a city an hour south of Madrid. Aranjuez is famous for the Palace, which was the spring residence of the Spanish monarchs from the reign of Philip II (1551) onward. It was really neat, one of the kings ( I don't remember which one...) had a wife who was Portuguese, and she missed the sea, so he built a fountain outside the palace, which sounds exactly like waves crashing on the beach! How romantic! That's the kind of guy I want to find! : ) We took a tour of the Palace and the gardens and enjoyed a lovely late lunch at an Irish cafe before heading back to Madrid. It was wonderful and the family was great! The mother and father both spoke English pretty well because they had lived in San Francisco for a few years before they had children. They have a 16 year-old girl and a 14 year-old boy, and the girl also brought along a friend of hers, who she will be going with to London this summer to participate in a month-long study abroad program in. We talked about school, music, and everything in between--conversation just flowed and I felt like I had known them forever! I think they would be a great host family for a study abroad student! They are so warm and welcoming! It was a pleasure for us to spend the day with them and they wouldn't even let us pay for a thing! They said they want to do these kind of day-trips once a month, on Sundays, to places around Madrid so we can see the touristic sites and they can practice their English--sounds good to me! : )

Aranjuez is also famous for its strawberries. There is a special Tren de la Fresa that takes passengers from Madrid's Atocha Train Station to Aranjuez in wooden wagons of a Steam Engine Train with hostesses dressed as in the 19th century, who provide guests with the succulent strawberries typical of the gardens of Aranjuez. It only runs from May-October, but it's definitely something I'll have to look into!

what to do, what to do...

Wow, it's February. I feel like the time has just flown. It's hard to believe I was at home only a month ago. It seems like it's been so much longer.

Now that I'm back in the swing of things at school, it's time to start thinking about what I want to do next year. I hate that I have to start figuring things out so soon! It's funny, though, because as I started to look into Master's in Teaching/Instruction programs in Minnesota, I'm finding I've already missed the deadline! The deadline for the U of M's Master of Education/Initial Licensure Program was December 15th. Plus, if I want to get into that Master's program, I would have to take about a year (at least) of pre-requisites like mathematics for the elementary teacher, teaching physical education, teaching music, history, etc. etc. So even if I do apply for the program next December, what am I going to do until then? And when am I going to take those classes?

I'm finding that as much as I hate planning that far in advance, it's something I'm going to have to start doing or I'm going to waste time.

Since I missed the deadline for the U, I started looking into other Master of Education/Initial Licensure programs around the state. I found one that seems really promising--Hamline University, which is, interesting enough, where I wanted to go for my undergraduate degree before I visited Ripon! I requested information from the College of Education and I have been in contact a lady from the Office of Graduate Admissions. She said, "On average, it takes students around 2 years to complete the license. The length of time and cost of for the program varies from student to student and will depend on the particular license that you are seeking, how your academic background lines up with the content area requirements (or how many content area courses would be waived based on past coursework and how many would be remaining to complete during the program) and your preferred pace." The best part about the program is that they accept applications on a rolling basis, so she said as long as I apply by June, I should be fine to begin in the fall! I mentioned the idea of getting a Master’s in Instruction to my dad, and he told me about another program that only takes a year, at St. Mary’s University in Winona. I’m not sure if I like the campus or exactly how everything works with that program either. Applying for grad school (and choosing one!) from Spain is a pain…

But I think I'm also going to apply for another year in Spain, just to keep all my options open. I'm not sure, though, where I want to apply. I've been thinking long and hard about this decision and I've listed the pros and cons to each decision and I still don't know. The hardest part is that everything is a gamble. If I stay here in Madrid, I will be in the same school, with the same students and the same teachers, and same terrible administration. But I will also have my host family from when I studied abroad, and my wonderful flatmate and flat in the center of the city. I like my teachers I work with and I love my third-graders, who I would have next year again as fourth-graders. But I don’t like the extra classes we are giving now during our preparation hour and the fourth-grade classes are very badly behaved…the administration is, well, Spanish…and the Spanish way of doing things is pretty inefficient sometimes…but I don’t know. I know that I could have it a lot worse…

What to do???