Life at School

So I know that for the most part I’ve been posting about my travels, so I thought I’d make a post about some things that are going on at school and some differences there are between high school here and high school in the U.S.  Since I’m teaching at an Instituto, which is basically a high school I’ve noticed a couple differences that are neither good, nor bad, just differences.  Some I could live with, other’s I’d much rather live without.

1.) RECESS

Yup, kids get recess, no matter how old you are, these kids get recess, here’s it’s called recreo.  But it is a bit different.  It’s 30 solid minutes where the kids are set up loose on the playground, basketball, fenced in area.  They are all allowed to be outside and eat a snack, what they call breakfast, and just chat and hang out.  In theory it’s great, and then you realized that they aren’t allowed inside during this time, and if it’s cold they have to stay out there…that sucks. 

Also, the teachers get recess! Yup, we get recess.  They set the whole school of kids outside and then the teachers leave.  Yup, they leave.  haha, it’s actually encouraged that you get out of the building, go grab some desayuno at the closest bar and chat with your fellow teachers.  It’s totally cultural here, you go out, grab a seat at your daily bar, get some toast, coffee, tea or any other preference of a drink and chat away.  And the best part is, it’s mostly not school gossip, they are friends and they just talk about their lives, what they did on the weekend or pick up the weekly magazine and talk about the styles are are in the magazine, and who looks good with what outfits.  It’s actually quite fun, and it’s considered strange if you don’t go out for something to build your relationships with the other teachers.  Because we don’t have a cafeteria at school the teachers have to go out, or some bring a small sandwich to school, but going out is better and way more fun.

2.) CUBBIES

I taught my coordinator this word the other day when I told her she can grab my materials from the cubby if she wanted to use them.  She looked at me kind of strange and ask what I just said and I told her I called my little boxed locker a cubby, and that’s what I called them in school when I was younger, and we still call them cubbies.  Anyways, teaches have cubbies and the students stay in their classroom.  So the teachers have to keep all their stuff in a tiny cubby with their name on it and run back and forth between the staff room and their classroom every period.  The teachers move.  This is something I could do without, because I like the idea of having my own classroom.  It also saves a lot of time if you’re not always switching classrooms and having to bring up anything you want to bring up on the computer.

But for now, this is how things are, and I’m getting accustomed to having a cubby.  And I got to put my name one it.  Mostly I did it so big because everyone still calls me Jenny, even though that’s clearly not my name.  The last auxiliary was named Jenny and apparently my name is just too close to that and my name is too hard for some Spainards. :/

 

 

3. ) IF YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG, NO SUGAR COATING IT

At first I was very unnerved when the teachers would tell the students “no, that’s bad/wrong” and then move on.  Or when they yelled at them multiple times and said “pay attention you lazy boy, stop fooling around, do you even care?”  All of these things said in front of the whole class while the student just looked at them.  The teacher would stand there and yell at a whole class saying “why don’t you get it?” “listen to me!” or “no, that’s wrong, you need to try harder”.  If a teacher said these words to a student, much less in front of the whole class, in the U.S. we’d be yelled at by the parents for humiliating their child in front of the whole class and making them feel bad.  Here, it’s the opposite.  If the student is wrong they are wrong, and they don’t sugar coat it.  And the students don’t even blink.  This is just the way it is and they take it and say “okay, I’ll change my answer” or “okay” and start paying attention.  There’s none of this stupid feel good nonsense here in Spain.  This is something I could get used to. haha

4.) I HAVE NO MORE CLASSES TO TEACH TODAY, SEE YA!

And it works the other way around too!  If you don’t have class or anything to do until 10:30, you don’t have to show up until before then!  Yup, so the teachers just come and go all day long, some come in later, some leave earlier, and it’s just all together very strange.  For example, on Thursday’s I have a prep class with one of my teachers that I work with, but it’s not until 10:15, and she doesn’t have anything before that, so she literally just shows up about 5 min before 10:15, or sometimes even 15 later, because she can!  And other days I don’t ever see my coordinator because she comes in after I leave, or leaves before I finish my day.  It’s so strange, but I’m not hating it.

So those are the main things that are different in the schools here.  None of which are big problems, and some of them I could live with.  Like not showing up at least 30 min early at 7AM and staying until schools out, and being encouraged to leave school in the middle of the day for coffee.  But there are things I definitely like better about school life at home.  All in all, every day introduces new challenges and gives me insight into the different lives that people lead here, that I guess I lead here now….

Until next post, love you all. <3

Granada, returning home!

I finally returned to Granada! Yup, about 1 year and a half ago I studied in Granada and left a little piece of my heart there when I left.  The city had me in love with Spain in just a few shorts weeks of me being there.  And when I left I told myself I would go back one day, and I looked for a way back for a long time.  It took me two summers and living in a different city, but I did it!  And you can bet that when I returned it was the most glorious moment ever and I was grinning from ear to ear like a little child.  We arrived Thursday evening after about 4 hours on the bus from Sevilla and found our wonderful hostel (handpicked my me) which was located right in the heart of the city. And since we were hungry and weren’t quite sure where to go my friends decided to trust me and I took them to a place I remembered for having good tapas and a good atmosphere.  It was a little bit strange being back in the restaurant because I actually spent my last night in Spain at that restaurant and to spend my first night back in Granada there was a little like I never left.  It was a very strange and surreal feeling to be sitting in the bar at a table I sat at often, but over a year later, with different people, in different circumstances and only for a weekend.  It was all strange.  But the food was just as good as I remembered, if not better since I actually tried most of it, I’ve gotten more adventurous since the fist time I was in Granada.  :)  Later that night we went to a teteria (tea house) since they are the best in Granada with all the Arab influence.  We hung out late until late into the night and decided to head back by 1 to get ready for our day full of adventures!  We had a whole weekend and needed to fill it with everything there is to do!

So after out first night out we decided to hit the hay and get rested up for our “free” tour of the Albayzin on Friday!  We met up with Camille and then met the guy who gives the tours.  Hostels do great things where they give “free” tours to it’s guests and then at the end you give a good tip/pay them after the tour is over.  Our tour guide was quite funny and told stories about how the Alhambra got into the hands of the Catholic Kinds and the history of the city using people in our tour.  He had some people being the king of one country or another and then one was a queen or someone.  He told stories and acted things out and showed us cool things, like how the design of La Alhambra looks like the word written out.  It’s really brilliant and cool, and I didn’t even know that the whole time I lived there!  The guy took us around the Albyzin and told us about how it’s actually losing a lot of it’s residents because the amount of money it costs to live there is astronomical.  Apparently it’s under preservation because it’s a historical area of Granada, and because it brings so many tourists there are requirements to keep the outside of your house looking fresh and clean.  But if you don’t have the money to keep it looking like that, they you can actually lose your house.  Also, there’s no stores or anything up there because they don’t really give building permits, so you have to either walk all the way to the city center to get your groceries and other things, or you have to pay someone (if you’re older) to go out and get the things for you and deliver them to your house.  And not a lot of cars can fit through the roads, and you can only drive on certain roads.  Basically, living there is a mess, and while it’s sounds great, in reality it’s not so great.  The views are nice, but the living conditions and expenses aren’t so nice.  So it’s kind of a shame to walk through and see how some houses have been abandoned by owners because they can’t afford to live there and keep their house looking nice for the tourists.

Anyways, we walked through the Albyzin, and saw some incredible views, and then ended up at the Miradaor de San Nicolas which is the famous view point that all tourists visit.  And from there our tour guide dropped us off without even telling us how to get out…..thanks.  Luckily it’s not that hard, you honestly just find a route and walk down, since the Albyzin is up on a hill, just walk down and eventually you’ll get out.  It’s a long walk, but it’s worth it, and you get to see a different part of the Albyzin while you walk out.  The mirador was crowded as usual, and the sun was really bright so it was hard to get good pictures of the Alhambra, plus it was cloudy so you couldn’t see the beautiful mountains.  But all in all it was well worth the time we spent there taking pictures and adoring the wonderful piece of undisturbed history. There was never a war or battle fought in Granada, that’s the only reason that the Alhambra is still standing….also it’s not a world wonder (even though it should be) because the people who decide these things said that when one of the kinds built a huge palace in the middle it ruined the rest of the view.  Now it’s true, it doesn’t match the rest of the fortress, but seriously!?  That’s like saying the Pyramids aren’t a world wonder because some idiot built a tower next to it hundreds of years ago…. dumb.

Here’s some pictures from the way up to the mirador and when we got there.

 

All of us together up at the top of the Mirador.  That’s the Alhambra behind us, and you can almost see them Sierra Nevada if you look in the background near the sky

Me at the mirador!

 Inside a beautiful private garden in the Albyzin. 

Inside an old Arabic bath house

After we walked up to the mirador, I went to lunch with my host mom from about a year ago!  You know how you build things up in your mind, then they’re not as awesome because you build them up….yea, that happened.  She was just as I remembered, and everything was the same, but two different strange girls were sleeping in my bed and I remembered how much time I spent there.  Then the food wasn’t as great because I built it up in my head, but it was still really good, don’t get me wrong.  Also, for some reason Julia kept calling me Jenny…..  Julia told me that one time before another girl returned to do the same thing I’m doing, and I think her name was Jenny.  So I think she just had that name in her head, and I just let it go and let her call me Jenny, it was close enough.  But it was sad because I kept thinking it was going to be this great moment, but it was and it wasn’t.  lol.  It was really nice to see her again, but I think I’ll pass the next time I’m in Granada. 

Then I was able to meet up with my friends from Granada, my intercambio friends who I met with once a week when I lived there!  They were in Granada for the weekend as well so I brought all my friends along and we met up and went out for some tapas.  It was awesome and I was so excited to meet with them, especially since I had plans to go down to see them in Malaga the following weekend.  It was a preamptive meet up and we got all out giggles and screams of joy out. :) So that’s me and Maria and Manolo, Manolo makes really weird faces when he smiles, haha.  He’s like Chandler in friends, he just can’t do it for a picture.  But it was a really fun night, they took us to a nice place for tapas and they met all my friends. :)

The rest of the weekend flew by.  On Saturday I went with Camille, and her friends from Italy that she made last year, to the Parque de las Ciencias.  Jess and Sarah went to the Alhambra, and since I had already been, and Camille and I couldn’t get tickets, we decided to spent the day, or at least part of the day, at the Science park.  yes it’s a park, there’s a lot to do and it’s awesome.  I didn’t stay the whole day though, only until Sarah and Jessica got out of the Alhambra tour, so after that I headed out to lunch with them where I spent an astronomical amount on lunch because we ate so much.  And then we went exploring did some shopping and over all rested for the rest of the evening.  We were exhausted from the past two days of running around and site seeing, so we ended up being lame, and just went out for Kebaps for dinner and then went back to the room for an early night.  But Sunday we woke up early to check out and go explore the graffiti that’s all over Granada and in the Jewish Quarter, and to see the coffins of the Catholic Kings and their family.  It was awesome, I’d seen them once before but like a long time ago and didn’t really remember.  So we went during the hours when it’s free and it was awesome!  Also, the graffiti is really cool, it’s not like gang graffiti back home, it is just beautiful art that happens to be on the street walls.  Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the chapel where the Catholic Kings are, because it’s disrespectful to them and all, but I have pictures of the graffitti.

Oh yea, we went into the Cathedral on Friday to see the gorgeous and huge Cathedral.

Outside the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

So that was my weekend in Granada.  I took a lot of pictures, did a lot of things and smiled a lot.  I can’t wait to go back with my parents in April.  :) 

Next post, Malaga!  Where I spent the weekend with two wonderful Spainards who were so accommodating and nice to me, and showed me the beautiful city that they live in now.  Until next post, love you!