Finally some excitement!

Working as a language assistant in Spain, there are both good days and bad days, just like any job. Today, however, was a great day! I only work two hours on Wednesdays to begin with, and since I don't start until 10:30, I didn't even have to get up too early. When I first got to school, Sonia (our French teacher) introduced me to the new French language assistant from Belgium. Since we seemed to be busy talking, the teacher that I was supposed to have class with suggested that we skip class today, which is always fine by me!

Pretty soon, two other girls arrived and joined in the conversation (all in Spanish of course!) They are both Spanish and are doing their teaching practicum (to teach English) at our school for the next month. It's nice to finally have some people around that are closer to my age, since almost everyone we meet here is either a student (ie. under 18) or a teacher (ie. over 30).

Then for the next hour, since we have a new work schedule, I got to go to a different English class... with actual students. It was a welcome change from all of the one-on-one classes I have with the teachers. It was also nice as there were only about 7 students in the class, and it took place in the English department, which means they are all sat in a circle around a small table instead of in desks. So it was a very informal class and I really got to talk to the students.

Finally, as the perfect end to my day, I decided to finally talk to Cristina (the school secretary) to see if she could help me get some work translating. Here in Rota, the tourist industry is huge, and as a result there are tons of flyers and other materials floating around that are written in English. Well, someone tried to translate them into English anyways, they just didn't really succeed. Even though I am a native speaker of English, there are a lot of things I would rather read in Spanish because the English makes no sense at all, or is completely impossible to understand. So I thought that I could make myself useful and maybe get some translation experience by helping to fix these translations. Luckily, Cristina had a contact at the ayuntamiento (town hall) who she spoke to today, and in the next few days they are supposed to call me for an interview!

Visiting a Spanish friend

Today Erin, Rachael, and I we were invited to spend the afternoon at Sonia's house. Sonia is one of the teachers from my school that I teach English to. She lives in El Puerto, but had a friend that lives in Rota that was going to visit her, so we got a ride there and then back home as well. The five of us had coffee together at Sonia's and just hung out at her house for a few hours. It was a really good way to practice our Spanish as it was very informal and relaxing. I find it very difficult to speak and understand Spanish when there is a big group of people around, so it was really nice.

One interesting thing that I had already found out at school earlier, but Sonia brought up again, had to do with the coffee mug that I had brought to school today. Today at school every time a new teacher saw the mug, they felt the need to pick it up and try to figure out exactly what it was and what it was for! I brought it with me from home so that I could drink my coffee on the way to school in the mornings. Apparently this is NOT something Spaniards do. In fact, they never ever eat or drink while they are walking or driving. Sonia also brought up a bunch of stereotypes that Spaniards (and probably Europeans in general) have of Americans because of American media. She pointed out that in the movies and on television, teenagers are constantly leaving the house without eating breakfast at all, or they grab something to eat on the way as they run out of the house. To Spaniards this is a very strange thing to do. Yet another cultural learning experience here in Spain...

Back to school

Well, I didn't exactly go back to school yesterday... but I did get to go to Rachael's school, the other high school in Rota. They were having a presentation for the students about why it is important to learn other languages and they wanted me to be one of the speakers. I had to speak once in French, then once in English. Then after I got a tour of Rachael's school and met some of the teachers. It was an interesting presentation, and it was also nice not to have to go straight back to work my first day back in Spain.

Normally I would have had to go back to school Jan. 8, as the students here have pretty much the same Christmas holidays as back at home. Luckily, I was able to talk to the head of the bilingual program at our school and get a few extra days off to spend at home. They seemed pretty flexible, which was great. If only I would have thought of taking the days off BEFORE Christmas, maybe my flights home would have gone a lot more smoothly!

Christmas Holidays

Well, here I am back in Spain after a 2-week holiday in Canada (wow, saying it like that really makes me realize that I live in Spain.) As some of you might already know, it was a long and painful process just to get to Canada in the first place, but it was all worth it.

The trip started off well on Friday, December 21, as I managed to get to the airport in Jerez with plenty of time to spare to catch my flight. After that though, everything went downhill. Boarding for the flight from there to Madrid was delayed by about 45 minutes, which wasn't a big deal, since I wasn't actually supposed to fly out of Madrid until early the next morning. So although I was an hour late getting into Madrid, I just called my friend Princess (who I was going to hang out with in the city until I had to get back to the airport) and told her I would be a bit late. After finding the luggage storage (which is in a very inconvenient location outside the airport and across the road), and dragging my heavy bag over there, I hopped on the metro and met Princess. We did some shopping and just wandering, and just like in Rota, all the streets and many of the buildings were decorated with Christmas lights.

Afterwards we went for dinner and back to Princess' house, and then at half past midnight I left to catch the last train to the airport. Unfortunately, because my flight left at 6:30 am, that meant I had to spend the night in the Madrid airport. I managed to find some comfortable chairs to sleep on for about an hour, and soon enough it was time to get in the massive line up to check in for my next flight to Frankfurt, Germany. Supposedly as a result of this long line up, our flight was delayed for 2 hours. Since my connection time in Germany was less than 2 hours, I had to run to catch my next flight to London. And the only reason I caught that flight was that it too was delayed for about an hour leaving Frankfurt. Later it was also delayed as there was a lot of fog in London and we had to wait for another hour before we could land.

By the time I got to London, I was 4 hours later arriving than expected, and the flight to Calgary had already left without me an hour earlier! There were many other people who had missed flights due to the fog, so Air Canada started putting people on standby flights to Toronto. Since I had booked my flight with Aeroplan Miles though, they told me that my ticket was the lowest priority. I didn't catch the first flight, but they did manage to put me on the second flight to Toronto later that night. So I ended up spending another night in yet another airport... although at least I was in Canada. Especially since I heard later that the next day hundreds of flights out of London were not just delayed, but cancelled due to the fog! I flew to Calgary early the next morning, after spending the night with some people I had met in the London airport in the same situation as me.

All in all, the trip home took me 80 hours from start to finish and made me hate airports with a passion. I highly recommend NOT travelling on December 22 as it is one of the busiest travel days of the year.

My time at home was really great (though not long enough), as I got to spend time with friends and family, and I got the chance to bring back lots of things I'd been missing the last 3 months! The trip back to Spain was a lot less exciting, but still took about 17 hours, so I'm pretty tired. The best news about being back in Spain is that when I left Canada, it was -20 degrees Celsius, and here in Spain it is +15 degrees!