a (not so brief) update on my life in spain

Hello family and friends! in case you didn't know, i am back for another year in spain... but it appears this blog has become more of a thing to be neglected and felt guilty about than a good way of keeping in touch. what follows is a (slightly) edited EPIC email i sent to my parents a few days ago. upon my mom's suggestion, i've added it here. it's not well written or edited for grammar etc, but it's a basic (long) rundown of my life here at the moment. i will try to keep updating on more specific things. but suffice to say i am happy to be back, am making friends, and am very busy with work (as you'll see below). enjoy!

things here are good, but very busy. somehow when i have internet i find myself wasting lots of time instead of taking advantage and keeping in touch with important people. now that i've taken my turn in online scrabble via facebook, i've found the time to write to y'all.

they still haven't paid us for october or november, so we're all struggling a little bit to make it to the end of this month, when a whopping 700 euro will (supposedly) arrive in our bank accounts. most people still have to pay rent and maybe put a deposit down on housing, so it won't last long. luckily i've been able to live off the money i had leftover from last year. but i have about a million (9, soon to be 11) private lessons a week, so i'm doing just fine. although my some friends and i have sworn to go to both our favorite japanese place and the amazing sausage place as soon as we get paid.

school is good, just regular. i have some classes this year that i didn't have last year, with the oldest bilingual kids who are now in about freshman year. they are bad! we think they have a significant chip on their shoulders because they're the first bilingual section in the school and they've continually been told how good and talented and intelligent and special they are. they are not. they're rude and out of control and smart alecky, but not in a cute way, in a bratty, badly behaved way. i still love seeing my kids from last year; it's not that they're any better behaved this year, but i have a serious soft spot for them. the first years are pretty good, but in the afternoon class they are pretty bad. i have to figure out how to keep them interested and under control at the same time. last year i had the afternoon class with my co-teacher sheila, so it wasn't too bad, at least we could support each other and have two pairs of eyes and two disciplinarians. now i have 15 kids on my own while the other guy has the other half. i get frustrated and yell a lot and they are only quiet for about three seconds after i yell, and then it gets out of control again. i am seriously starting to worry about my vocal cords.

my private classes are going well. i have julia, the 16 year old i had last year, twice a week. she's great, i just go and talk to her and we do her homework and practice reading comprehension etc. her mom said this year she won't let me escape to the US without coming to their house to eat sometime, which is super nice.

i also meet with an english teacher who's 30, and speaks really great english. and he's really really nice and interesting, so we have a lot to talk about in our conversation class. he and his girlfriend have started inviting me to do things with them on the weekends, which is really nice. last weekend we went to an archeological exhibit here in town. look up atapuerca on wikipedia, it's this archaeological dig pretty near here that's evidently a huge deal. there they found the oldest human remains ever found in western europe, and even found a new species of human ancestors. and there is the first evidence of funerary rites EVER found in the whole world! isn't that cool?! the exhibit was ok, it was all casts of the bones though, so i didn't get to see any real dead guys. this weekend they (pablo and isabel) invited me to go to lunch at their house, so i went over there yesterday and had a lovely afternoon eating and talking with them. i invited them to our spanish-american thanksgiving celebration in two weekends, and they seemed really excited about it. i was glad to be able to invite them to something and return their inclusion!

for other extra lessons i have 4 hours a week at an english academy, which is still going ok. i have three classes, two of 8/9 year olds, and one of 12/13 year olds. the little kids are hard to handle, i speak a lot of spanish with them. oops. the older girls are really nice though, we all get along and chat and work on english. i look forward to having class with them. i just graded their first exams. i feel like a real teacher!

then i have a private lesson with a 5 year old named luis, and i go out to their house twice a week. they live in this beautiful redone house out in the countryside, and it was sunny last time i went, so we played outside some. but i feel a little uncomfortable going there, i'm not sure how i feel about it. they are super wealthy, like even have a maid/nanny who wears a uniform. last time i went there was a new mini cooper, a bmw SUV and a mercedes in the driveway. the mom drives a modest volkswagen. they also have at least 14 dogs because they breed them, bordeaux something? they're like hefty boxers with reddish brown coats. the mom often drops me off late or doesn't leave on time, so i don't know if i feel taken advantage of or not. but the kid is (surprisingly) very good, and they pay me 18 euro and come and pick me up at school and drop me off, so it's not all bad. the weirdest thing was when we were trying to find another hour a week (she wanted 2), i was looking at my schedule to try to find a slot between school and the academy, and i said something about having to leave time to eat lunch. she asked me what i'd done that day for lunch, and i'd brought a sandwich because i wasn't sure when i'd leave their house etc. and she said "oh that's good, you can just bring your sandwich and eat while luis eats." like, not offering me food at their house while they're cooking anyway and feeding the little kid...and it's clear no one is wanting for money or anything like that at this house. it made me feel a little bit like "the help." so i just eat before i go every time to save my dignity and hang out while the kid eats. i'll see how it goes, i've only gone 3 times so far.

then my friends from school last year, eva and maria eugenia want to meet once a week or so for conversation so i can help them with new vocabulary and their pronunciation. so we agreed we'd meet for lunch, they'd buy me lunch, and then over coffee afterwards we'd chat in english for a while. which is totally fine for me. free lunch! so unlike the place i described above, i just realized that. sheila also is passing along a conversation class she had last year with 2 kids who she says are just wonderful, so i will find time for them, as a favor to her and because she recommends them so highly. so all in all, i'll be making a good amount of extra money, well over half my salary. maybe i'll even save some money this year!! or at the very least have some to travel....to africa to visit katie maybe....!

my choir's christmas concert is dec 18th, which is also the day i leave to come home. but we're gonna be on TV this year! for whatever reason we're performing in the cathedral and the local tv channel is going to televise it. so cool! and i was a little bummed i wasn't going to be there, but not too badly. and then the director said the choir would pay the difference to change my ticket to come home the next day....which i didn't believe at first, and then he told me again. so i looked into it, and it will cost at least 300 US dollars just to change it, plus the difference in the ticket prices. and i told him that, saying i wouldn't make the concert because it would be so expensive to change it, and he said no no i told you we'd pay, you change it and we'll pay. so i'll look into that! wouldn't that be cool!? and SO SO nice. he has no reason to do that, they have other sopranos, they perform without me all the time, especially over the summer. AND next weekend we're going away for the weekend, the whole choir! the government of the next province over, castilla y leon, i think, invited us to come and sing a few concerts and masses, and they pay our transportation and hotels and food and everything. so we're going on a bus and staying saturday night and singing a bunch of concerts. and the last thing about choir, is that my friend raquel from school sent me an email about six cocker spaniel puppies a friend of a friend was trying to give away, or else they'd be "sacrificados." and i got so sad, i've been working really hard to find people to take them. i wish i could! so i forwarded the email with pictures to choir, and no one wanted one, and i just got a call from one guy who does want one! so i'm really happy to have been able to help the little things. they're so so cute and tiny. then raquel just got back to me saying they've all been given homes. i feel bad telling my friend from choir he can't have one, but i'm really happy they've been adopted.

today we're going to cook all day, my friends rachel, francesca, their spanish roommate marina, and i. yesterday i went to the fruit/vegetable place that's SUPER cheap and great, down the block from my house. last week i got everything to make a big minestrone soup, a whole bursting plastic bag full of potatoes, zucchini, carrots, parsnips, onions, and some fruit, and it all cost under 4 euro! and they gave me free parsley! it's a great place, rachel found it.

so that's the most recent news from this side of the atlantic. i'll write more about more interesting historical cultural things, or anecdotes, etc. at some point. for now just a simple update. take care everyone!! xox

finally finally

Well...

i know, it's been an unforgivably long time since i've posted anything. in a (soon to be expanded-upon) nutshell: i went home for christmas, came back to spain, moved out of my apartment, moved in with a friend for a month, went skiing in andorra for a week, moved into a new apartment, went to england for my godson's christening...and that brings us up to now! 

people (mostly my parents) have been asking to see pictures of my new place. i can do better than that -- here's a video! (see below)

to make a long story short, i just wasn't happy in my other place. it was freezing all the time (granted the weather has gotten considerably better since then), and i wasn't pleased with the roommate situation. her boyfriend was there literally all the time, and i found him rude, disrespectful, and generally disgusting. they also smoked in her room, despite swearing up and down that they wouldn't/didn't...so i felt like every time they lit up was a big "&%$# you" to me. so i decided to move out when a friend from school said she would look for a place with me. i moved out, and she then told me because of her job (she's substitute teaching this year) she couldn't get a place with me because she'd never know where she'd get sent to substitute next. so i was stuck. luckily my friends laurin and chelsea (hey guys!) let me stay in their place for over a month while i looked for a place. then, another friend from school told me she had a friend who had a place he didn't use...i came and looked at it, and it's perfect. i'm by myself in the apartment, which i thought would be lonely, but i love it. the place is adorable (at least i think so!), totally central, near everything i need in the city. including the gym i joined, and the train station. and get this, he's charging me less than i paid in my old place! perfect!

so i'll update on more things later. another plus of this place is i can steal internet from some nice wireless network named "THOMPSON." 

Where I Actually Live

sorry the quality's not great, and it's small...it's the best i could do! the circle up on the north coast is Santander, where i live now. the dot to the left of Santander is Torrelavega, where i teach. and the circle down by Portugal is Salamanca, where i studied two years ago.

Get the Spaniards out of My Grill; or, Misadventures on the Santander Bus System

as my trip home approaches, i'm realizing how ready i am for a little break from spain. i truly love it here, and am considering extending my contract to teach for another year. but there are certain things i miss about the US, and certain things about spain that drive me absolutely nuts.

for instance, there is the personal space issue. the spanish "bubble" is much, much smaller than the american one. in fact, i'd go as far as to say it does not exist. people are all up in your grill, all the time. the other day i was waiting for a friend outside a supermarket downtown. i was waiting about a yard from the door, against the wall of the bulding, on a sidewalk that happened to be mostly empty. a woman came along, approaching the supermarket entrance, and actually ran into me on her way inside. as in, hit my shoulder with her shoulder, and even gave a little huffy sigh of exasperation. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? the whole sidewalk is EMPTY. i am not in your way by any means. and she ran into me 3 feet from the very wide supermarket door?? i was so mad!

the day got worse. later that night i had choir rehearsal, which takes place up on a street called General Davila, which is the worst street in the whole world. perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. but i really hate it. it's at the top of a huge hill, so walking from either direction means hiking a 45 degree slope, and of course it's usually pouring rain. it's a long, ugly, dark street. there is only one bus that goes there, the number five, and by association it is the worst bus in the whole world. it is always packed full of people, and sometimes it doesn't even stop because it's so full. then you have to wait another 15 minutes in the rain at the tiny bus stop full of too many people smoking cigarettes in your face. General Davila is a very residential street, so the buses going there are always in high demand. as the little digital screen counts down the minutes we have to wait, people start to get more and more restless, shifting over to where they're guessing the bus doors will open so as to be the first one on. which in the first place is stupid, because if the bus driver stops he's not going to pick and choose who can get on. and secondly, it is super annoying because people are wicked pushy and a little mob crowd forms while 15 people try to squeeze through one bus door at the same time, all wildly waving their bus passes and their one euro coins. and inevitably there is that one little old woman who pushes through everyone and stands in the bus doorway to ask "are you going to valdecilla?" 75% of the time they are not, so she fights her way back through the crowd. (the little old ladies are the WORST with the pushing and shoving and general lack-of-respect-for-personal-space. it's the little old ladies who'll getcha).

so as i reluctantly joined the mob that monday evening, a little old lady (told you) bumped into me pretty hard. i turned around, uselessly, because they never acknowledge it. but this time, miraculously, she apologized profusely, calling me "hija," which means "daughter" but is more like "sweetie," saying she was so sorry, oh pardon me, i'm so sorry, excuse me please, forgive me. i turned back around, feeling wonderfully surprised and pleased with this showing of politeness from a spaniard. i was shuffling towards the door, looking over all the short, bald people in front of me (everyone here is bald and short. both men and women. maybe bald is a strong word; but hair-loss is rampant here), when i felt something poke me very forcefully. it was the woman who'd apologized for bumping into me! she had her finger in the small of my back, and was physically pushing me into the people in front of me so she could get on the bus faster! she was bossing me verbally too, saying "get on, get on, hurry, move forward, that's it," all the while pushing me and poking me. i couldn't believe it. right then and there my slightly renewed faith in spanish manners was crushed under the wheels of the number five bus by a pushy old spanish woman in an ankle-length fur coat and hot pink lipstick. needless to say, the number five bus has not improved any since then. nor has General Davila. although to be fair, last night my trip up there was relatively uneventful.

i realized that the lack of manners (or what we in the US would consider manners -- obviously here it's not really considered a social a transgresion to push people onto buses) is taught from a young age. i teach a private 'class' to two little girls, who are four and five years old, respectively. yesterday i had them say "por favor" when they asked me to open the door for them, or when they grabbed markers out of my hands, and they looked at me like i had three heads. and my roommate's boyfriend chews with his mouth open. smack smack smack. i guess the branch-spencer household and road's end farm emphases on manners has stuck with me in a big way.

but soon i will be home in the land of cool (frigid?) northeastern attitudes, where strangers don't touch each other, where (most) people (i hope) chew with their mouths closed and say "please" when they want to use the blue marker. i fly home december 19th (a week from today)! although let's be honest, the moment i land in boston i'll wish i was back here. but c'est la vie, right? the grass is always greener.

A Day in the Life.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays I go to school, so I’ll talk about one of those days. The other days are boring, I make lesson plans and read and see friends and try to find things to do inside if it’s raining (ALWAYS), or outside if it’s not (NEVER).


I wake up in the morning and curse everything because it is always cold in my room, and dark – it gets light around 8am and gets dark around 6pm. I shower and eat breakfast (oatmeal, or toast – do you need this much detail?), get my stuff together and run to the train. I am always late. Thursday morning I missed it and said bad words in English – sometimes it is very convenient that no one understands me.


The train to Torrelavega (the small city where I teach) takes about forty minutes, with lots of stops in little towns on the way. The tracks go through green rolling hills and small mountains covered in patches of forest and grazing land. There are lots of cows, some little fat shaggy ponies (ponies!!), and sheep. Every day I look for a cat, because inevitably I see one hunting in the fields, staring pointedly down at what I always assume is a mouse, but could easily be a piece of grass or a leaf. (Sarah Argeropoulous that kitty part is for you. And I always think of you when I look for them!) One day I guess I should take my camera and try to document this trip. Sometimes I bring a book, or my iPod, or my journal, but sometimes I just like to look out the window.


I get off the train and walk to school, which takes five to fifteen minutes depending on which station I disembark from. Then I have classes, which differ each day. In class, I help the teacher or lead an exercise, like a worksheet I’ve prepared. Lately I’ve been reading a simplified Sherlock Holmes story aloud to some third years, and talking about vocabulary etc. My first years are getting very excited about their trip to London in April – they keep asking us questions about it, and none of us have any idea what’s going on. I’m not sure if I’m going to go, it depends on which other teachers want to go. Although not many of them are jumping at the chance. I’ll probably end up going, because hey, it’s a free trip to London! I don’t want to think too much about it though…21 twelve-year-olds who speak veeeery little English…in London…with just me and one other teacher…for five days…yikes.


Wednesdays are my long days – I have classes in the mornings and in the afternoons. (Keep in mind that ‘morning’ in Spain means until about 2pm, and ‘afternoon’ means anytime after then, until about when it gets dark). So I teach for the morning, depending on if teachers sign up to have me come to their classes, and then I go out for lunch with the other girls in the English department. I’ll write a full entry on this, because it’s one of my favorite things about my life here in Spain – so more details to follow. Then I teach from 4-6, and come back to Santander on the train, or sometimes a teacher can give me a ride.


Tuesdays and Thursdays when I get home I cook lunch and chill for a little bit until my private lessons begin around 4 or 5. I have six separate private lessons every week, and my students range from a 50something ophthalmologist to the 4-year-old girl daughter of a teacher from my school. Again, more on this later. I guess I do have a lot to write about!


After lessons I hang out with friends, go grocery shopping; sometimes I attempt to go for a walk or down to Puerto Chico to write, but usually it is pouring. Tuesdays I have a standing date with my friend Laurin (who went to Bates), and her German roommate Bianca to watch Grey’s Anatomy. Don’t tell me what happens; we’re only halfway through the season here. After these evening activities I go to bed. Maybe read a little bit first.


So that’s it – not very exciting at all! Like I said, just life. Except it happens to be in Spain. I’ve taken a few weekend trips, but mostly on the weekends I do the same stuff, only we go out sometimes on Saturday nights. I can’t do that very often though, because most of the clubs open at 4am. So we leave to go out around 11pm, and are out til 4 or 5. I was not made for this type of schedule, so I try to keep going out to a minimum. But sometimes we go to the local Irish pub to have beers and watch whatever fútbol (soccer) match is on the big screen; sometimes we venture out to the cliffs outside the city to take pictures and pretend we’re not in a city. Also, the days I don’t work (Mondays and Fridays) I have choir rehearsal. Which I love! I’ll write about that too, come to think of it. Now I’m going to head off to bed – it has been another (not-so-)exciting day in España. Plus I am getting another cold!

I Knew Keeping Up With This Would be a Problem

Millions of apologies for leaving all you readers in the lurch lately – if I can still use the term ‘lately’ to refer to the last, oh, month, and if there are still people out there reading this…I’ve been terrible at keeping this updated! Amanda even told me “I’m reading your blog, don’t slack on it.” Sorry Manda. Mostly it’s because nothing really exciting has happened, and I don’t want to bore people with things like “Today I had oatmeal for breakfast. But it was the last of the big bag of oatmeal so I have to take the bus to the big supermarket to buy more. Cranberries are impossible to find in Spain. I bought a new pair of boots. Love, Susannah.” All of that is true but not really exciting. I’m sorry to have insulted you if you thought that last bit in quotation marks was scintillating (+1 vocabulary for me).


A few people have asked me what my daily life is like here – so I figured I’d do a “day in the life” type-entry to give you an idea. Frankly, lately it just feels like life. I get up, go to work, cook, take the train, normal things. The feeling of elation I got for the first month from realizing I’m doing this amazing thing – that came upon me doing simple things like walking down the street – is pretty much gone. Which is not to say I’m not having a good time! I’m just adjusted, more or less. It will be nice to come home, then return – like they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Oh you didn’t know? I’m coming home for Christmas!

A Project

it came with black stickers shaped like a jack-o-lantern's eyes and mouth.

watch authenticity take shape:

calabaza brains

i went for a classic face...we're maintaining tradition here

after a quick run to the "chinos," we add a candle

*(please note the extracted seeds to the right -- we are ovenless. how to make toasted pumpkin seeds?? oh thank god for roommates' boyfriends who live with their parents and have luxuries like common kitchen appliances)

...and roommate number three is here!

Happy Halloween from Spain!!