I've been...

slacking!!

I need to write a new post.  I definitely will.  Soon.  There is much to catch up on.

For the moment, here are a couple pictures from my trip to Pedrafita to play in the snow:

Mountains, Gandalf, mountains! So pretty.

One of my favorites from the day; an action shot captured by Annie as I punted a snow boulder. hehe.

Moments.

1.14.13

Happy Mondayyy (ew).  Although, I'm lucky.  It's almost over here.

Today was actually pretty good, as Mondays go.  I just never seem to cross as much off my to-do list in one day as I mean to (i.e. all of it).  I have no idea why I have such an affinity for procrastination.

I think I may be coming into some luck on the clases particulares front-- cross your fingers for me.

These are some funny things I witnessed or noticed at school today (my day with the primary kids):

In a class of 10-11 year olds:
- "Profe, sabes quienes son novios? Carlos y Silvia." (Teacher, know who's dating?)
- Teacher & I smile/shake our heads/chuckle. Class stares at Carlos and Silvia.
- Carlos & Silvia immediately blush furiously and stare intently at notebooks. Silvia can't help but smile a bit.
- Awkward silence.
- Cue fart noise by Alex.

- Chaos ensues (resumes).

In a class of 8ish year olds:
-Eyy, Andrea, quieres callarte??? (Hey, Andrea, d'you wanna shut up??)
[Teachers say this all the time!! I guess it must not be as inappropriate/harsh as "shut up" in American classrooms. I've told this teacher a few times that it really sounds better to say "be quiet," but I think she forgets.]

-In the world of a 6-8 year old Spanish child, every word that begins with an "h" is probably "how" (followed by "are you," of course).
Gahh I need to break them of this... They're too used to only reciting dialogues.


One of the high points of my day was getting to do a couple lessons actually on my own with the secondary school (middle school) kids.  HOWEVER, the teacher for this class always wants to "improvisar" (improvise), so I had no idea what the lesson would be about, what materials I would have access to, or what prior knowledge the students had of the subject until I was standing in front front of them, about to improvisar (fly by the seat of my pants).  I think I did OK, given the situation, but it could have been so much better!  All I need is for this teacher to tell me what the plans for the coming classes are; I email her every week asking about the following week, but she always just says "don't worry" and "we'll improvise" -__-  Sigh.  Someday I will have my own classroom.  And it will be awesome.

Hah.  I do believe that was my first vent session on here... Discúlpame.

Here's a small piece of sunshine to make up for it:

I think the library at school is buying/has bought some new books.  I saw this one on my lunch break. Stellaluna <3 I loved it as a child. I can still hear Mom's voice reading it :)

Also: I think I'm going to be able to start taking (free) gallego classes in April! :D  And tomorrow the secondary students are going to start reading/memorizing some poems for some kind poetry day that is coming up... Jeje.  Thaaaat should be interesting.  I'm bringing in a bunch of Robert Frost's shorter and simpler poems.  I see this as a good time to maybe touch on a bit of American culture, but so little interests the students that my hopes are not high.  I don't even know if I could pique their interest with an edgy or popular song... Although that might be worth a try.

This is me, on a Thursday.

1.10.13

I don't really have anything monumental to write about today, but that's actually one of the reasons I wanted to write.  The majority of my days here are just regular days of the week, and maybe my few followers wouldn't mind hearing about normal life in Lugo.  And if you do mind, then consider this a purely selfish post, because someday I might want to go back and read it ;)

My first couple days back at school went well; having to talk about a holiday for 8-12 hours in week is really a great way to get you over it.  I am perfectly content to wait an entire year for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to come back, because, frankly, school made me sick of talking about them.  But it was nice to see the kids, and the teachers, and to hear about how everyone spent the holidays here.  Here are some things I learned about Christmas and New Year's Eve in Spain:

- On Christmas Eve (Nochebuena), it's traditional to eat a lot of seafood.  This is because seafood is very expensive, so it's included in what is supposed to be one of the "best" meals of the year.  I am all for adopting this tradition ;)

- Some children get presents on Christmas morning, but not all.  Even some of the ones who do don't necessarily get these presents from Santa Claus.  Traditionally, children receive their presents on the morning of January 6th.  They are brought by the three kings on the night of the 5th, and, instead of putting out stockings, small children customarily leave out their shoes to be filled. (Nowadays it seems like a lot of children get presents on both days, and they seem very OK with this.)

- The night of Jan 5th (Epiphany Day Eve? lol), there is also a parade in every city, town, and village in Spain.  It's called la cabalgata, and the three kings are featured in it.  Candy is thrown to the children, and also small presents/trinkets.  One of the students at my school told me that, in the small village where he is from, parents/relatives will give the presents that they have for the children to the mayor in advance, and then at the end of the cabalgata, everyone gathers in the main plaza and the kings read each child's name off a list and actually give them their gifts "in person."

- There is a cake, called a roscón, that is only eaten on Jan 6th.  It has little figurines of the kings baked in it like "presents" and there is also a bean hidden inside.  The figurines are treats, but, apparently, whoever eats the slice with the bean has to pay for the roscón! haha.  I saw a bunch in the windows of pastelerías, but I didn't realize what they were:

- On New Year's Eve, I mentioned eating grapes.  12 grapes are eaten at midnight here, one on every stroke of the clock.  The people in my conversation group at the language school also told me that it is good luck to have only your right foot on the ground while eating the grapes.

- Something else I learned from the adults in my conversation group is that it's good luck to drink champagne with something gold in it (like a piece of jewelry), and/or with lentils (dry and uncooked, I presume, hehe) in it.

- Multiple Spaniards have told me that it's good luck to wear new red clothes on NYE (especially if they were a gift), and especially to wear new red underwear.

Interesting.

Today has been mostly lazy, like the majority of my weekends spent in Lugo.  But I have decided to start trying to resume my exercise, so I did go down to my little Río Rato path for the first time in a long time.  While I was hiking up to a lookout point, I saw a peacock:

 I have no idea what it's doing there, but it has it's own little enclosure and peacock-house, and some goose neighbors.

Also, I acquired another private lesson today! Hoo-rah.  All I had when I came back to Lugo was the conversation group on Wednesday nights because Iria is about to go to Ireland, so I've been on the prowl for more.  This "clase" would be with a 6 year old boy, and would also hopefully be pleasant & adorable.  I'm still going to print out some ads tomorrow morning and go put them up near the university and some colegios in the afternoon, though.  I also tried posting an ad on the University of Santiago website (as advised by a friend, because there is a campus here in Lugo), but the only thing that came of that was a personal trainer who wanted to exchange workouts for English lessons... I was considering this, even though it's not really what I'm after (i.e. money) but it turns out he lives in Santiago. Qué lástima.  But here's hoping the prosperous part of 2013 can start now! ;)

Here are some pictures of what nature looks like in Lugo right now:

Write it on your heart...

1.6.13

...that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

(Thank you, Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Well, now it really is 2013.  Weird.  I was talking with some friends, and we all feel that "2013" sounds exceptionally weird as years go.  I don't remember thinking "2012... hmm, that sounds odd."  Maybe it's because, as a little girl, 2012 was the farthest ahead I thought.  I remember when I calculated what year it would be when I graduated from college and discovered it would be 2012.  I never bothered to think what might happen in 2013.  It really does feel the beginning of the rest, the unknown.

It's off to a good start for me here in Spain.  I went to a very fun New Year's Eve party in Lugo, spent the next day or so recovering, and today I just got back from a wonderful weekend in Santiago with Roxy :-)

The girls I hung out & ate grapes with at midnight before the party; Meghan, Annia, & Annie :-)

At the fiesta. Ryan, me, Annia & Meghan

The NYE party was pretty sweet.  The Spanish friends that I've met through Iria rented out a bar, decorated it, had music, goofy party favors, a "photocool" (photocall; area to take pictures), the whole nine yards.  The name tags we're wearing in the above picture are celebrities & famous characters, and when we arrived we had to find our "partner"-- it was fun.  I also had to post these pictures because I'm kind of in love with my dress, but I can't imagine I'll ever wear it again haha.

As I lay in bed, being lazy and trying to catch up on sleep/get back to a normal schedule on January 1st, I read the messages I'd gotten from Roxy the night before.  She was still in Florida at the time, but was about to come back to Spain, and, because she's got both some crazy & some awesome in her, she was thinking about flying up to Galicia to hang out with me before going home to Úbeda, in Andalucía.  It seemed like meeting up in Santiago de Compostela for a few days was the best plan because there's an airport there.  At first I felt pretty hesitant because it all seemed so spontaneous, but I am so glad we did it!  The city was just lovely, and we had a great time.

Me with some Christmas lights (they twinkled!) in the Praza de Cervantes, which it seemed like we always came back to.

The first night there we didn't do much but wander around; Roxy understandably needed some time to nap, so I showed up 3 or 4 hours after she'd already gotten to the hostel.  The first one we were in had an incredible view of the cathedral, but the doors to the rooms didn't lock, and there weren't any lockers... I'm not sure if this is common or not, but it made us both kind of uneasy.  So when we got back for the night & went to bed we pushed the spare bunkbed in front of the door (improvisation lol), and changed hostels first thing in the morning.  It's a good thing we'd decided to do that, because somebody tried to stumble in at around 8 in the morning.  Probably just a tired and/or inebriated guest with the wrong room, but still, who wants to wake up to that?

Anyway, the day after that went a lot smoother.  We got coffee at a cafe in the morning; met up with Meghan who'd come in for the day from Lugo; went and saw the cathedral, both inside and out; wandered the streets some more; took a small siesta; visited the cathedral museum; looked at some shops and street vendors; found a place to get yummy Spanish hot chocolate (which is really just melted chocolate), and also stumbled across a fantastic restaurant for dinner before going out that night (I had these setas [mushrooms] that were cooked in the most amazing sauce/spices... I am definitely going back there when I visit Santiago again, even if I have to walk up and down every street in the old town to find it, because of course I forgot the name).

The cathedral was just... jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, amazing.

This was taken standing on almost the entire opposite of the plaza in front, in an attempt to get both myself and the entire facade.

I just couldn't stop taking pictures of it.

Me & Roxy :-)

Gator Chomp! Represent.

After we got done with that giant wave of pictures, we actually went inside, which was no less impressive.  And I saw the tomb of St. James! (supposedly).  Unfortunately I could not take a picture of that, but still.  Pretty neat thing I can say I've done.

This the main altar part (apse? nave? I feel like it's probably called something like that... some word I've read in books & can't remember).  The tomb is right under the most middle, most gold part.

While in the cathedral museum, we got to go into this cool inner courtyard, where a lot of old priests were buried, and we could also see the bells that used to be up in the towers.

I am in this picture, if you can see me.

I don't have any pictures of that night, unfortunately.  Not that there was much to photograph, except our pretty faces ;) haha.  We just wandered around for a while ducking into different bars, before we went to one that is apparently frequented by students.  There we met some people (including a girl from Morocco who's in a circus?) and walked over to a more dance-y, club-like place with them.  It was about 7am before we called a taxi to get back to the hostel (oh, Spain...), so, needless to say, we slept in a bit the next day.

When we finally did venture out into the world again, we took a few more pictures by the cathedral (of course), and then went & bought picnic supplies and went to one of the larger parks with a really pretty vista of the city.

 

 I also took some pictures of the traveling gnome I got for Christmas jeje ;)

I couldn't get over how pretty it was there. Must try to go see it in the spring or summer.

A monument to Rosalía de Castro, who was one of the greatest Galician language writers/poets.

At the over-look of the city.

My favorite picture of the cathedral from the park. Gotta love sunset light.

And then I got up at 5:45 this morning to come back to Lugo in the cold, frost, and fog (typical) haha.  But it was a really great time.  Great to see my friend, who I miss so much, and great to explore a new city.  I like that, the more I see of Galicia, the more I love it.

I think I'll give the internet a break for now; tomorrow is the last day of vacation before school starts again and I want to savor the hours!