The wonderful Spanish horario

New York may be the self-proclaimed city that never sleeps, but Spain is the country that never sleeps (except for, of course, the occasional siesta). As a huge night owl, I couldn’t be more comfortable living here. The main thing that sets Spain apart from the US (and most other Western countries) is the meal times. For example, lunch. When I first got my work schedule way back in September, I noticed that I had a break every day from 11:30 – 12:00. Being a naive norteamericana, I assumed this was my lunch break. WRONG. 

Spanish kids (and teachers) have a snack at 11:30 and then a half-hour recess. At least at my school, lunch isn’t until after all classes are done for the day, right before the kids go home. That’s 2:15 on early days, or 2:45 on late days. 2:45! Could you imagine telling parents in the US that their kids couldn’t eat until 2:45 pm? There would be lawsuits (joking. kind of).

BUT lunch is the main meal of the day here. I eat with other teachers in the cafeteria almost every day, and in addition to two main courses (the first is usually soup/pasta, the second is usually fish/meat), we get salad, bread, yogurt, fruit, coffee, and cookies. It’s basically the equivalent of eating a big dinner in the middle of the afternoon. 

Spanish dinner time isn’t until at least 9, maaaaybe 8 if you’re eating early. This sounds crazy, but when you consider how long you’re full from lunch, it’s really not a big deal at all. I actually LOVE it because I don’t have to plan my evenings around dinner. I get home from work, usually leave my apartment for a few hours to do private lessons/ go to Spanish class/ explore Madrid, and then come home to “cook” and eat before showering and going to bed. I feel like I have much more flexibility and free time because of it, and I’m going to try really hard to keep eating at Spanish dinner time when I move back to the US. 

People also go out way later here. I mean, you kind of have to if you don’t finish dinner until 10 or 11. Midnight is a normal time to go to the bars, and most clubs won’t even open until 2 am. For emphasis: Spanish clubs open at the same time that American clubs close. Though I don’t like to do it too often because it really ruins the next day, it’s totally normal to stay out until 6 or 7 am. In fact, there’s even a Spanish word for the wee hours of the night: madrugada. As far as I know, we don’t have an English equivalent for this. 

Also worth noting: while traveling in smaller towns, I have seen tiny kids in restaurants/bars past midnight, and an elderly man tearing it up in a discoteca at 4 am. 

Despite Spain’s tendency to stay up all night, they don’t really compensate for it in the mornings. In my experience, everything starts up at around the same time as it would in the US. Also, siestas really aren’t as common as you’d think. I’ve heard that it is more common to take mid-afternoon naps in other regions/cities, but in Madrid not so much. I, however, am definitely guilty of the occasional siesta — kids are exhausting! 

Madrid’s late-night tendencies are perfect for my twenty-something lifestyle, and it will definitely be an adjustment to go back to doing everything earlier in the US. My question is though, how do people keep this up their entire life?? Maybe it’s all the café con leche, or maybe Spaniards are just genetically evolved to need less sleep. Either way, no complaints here! 

New Year’s with UR Friends

Although I went home to New York for Christmas, I made a point of being back in Spain for the second half of my break. Three of my UR friends, who are also living abroad (1 in Ireland, 2 in Russia), came to visit for New Year’s. We ate the 12 grapes at midnight for good luck in Puerta del Sol, and it was really fun to show them around my new city! 

After a few days in Madrid, we headed together to Portugal, where we visited Lisbon and Sintra. After that, Katie came back with me to Madrid, and yesterday we went on a day trip to El Escorial! 

Mis palabras favoritas

My absolute favorite thing about living in a foreign country and teaching English is that the majority of my waking hours are spent thinking about language. I love grammar, I love observing the social/psychological implications of language, and I really love the Spanish language in particular!

Even if I someday become completely and totally fluent in Spanish, I will always be an English speaker first. No matter how naturally the words and phrases may come, I will always view them from an English perspective. When taken literally, some translations are really amusing.  Others just make more logical sense than their English equivalents (to be fair, the same goes vise versa). For a variety of reasons, these are some of my favorite Spanish words:

1) Fatal

Literal translation: fatal

Practical translation: terrible, awful, etc.

When one of the other teachers tells you that the milk smells “fatal”, you feel a little less inclined to put it in your coffee. In the right context, this word makes things seem hilariously dramatic.

2) Todo el mundo

Literal translation: The whole world

Practical translation: Everyone/everybody

Really? The whole entire world needs to take out their English workbooks?

3) Maleducado

Literal translation: poorly educated

Practical translation: Rude

I just like this. It offers an explanation for manners – If you’re rude, it’s usually because you haven’t been taught how to be polite. It also implies that with education, you become more civil.

4) Abecedario 

Translation: Alphabet 

If you say it out loud, it sounds like A B C – Dario. The word for alphabet starts with the first three (or, arguably, four) letters of the alphabet. How could you not love that?

5) Paraguas 

Translation: umbrella

Para = for, agua = water. Literally “for water”.

6) Puntos suspensivos 

Literal translation: Suspensive periods 

Practical translation: Ellipsis 

Ellipses ARE suspensive.

 

 

I love Spanish.

Teaching abroad vs. Study abroad

Although on the surface there are many similarities, teaching abroad is quite different from study abroad. I’m fortunate enough to have had the opportunity for both, and I’ve found myself comparing the two experiences a lot. To be fair, Spain and Argentina are different countries (on different continents, even!), so some of the differences are because of that. (I’ve been meaning to write a post comparing Madrid and Buenos Aires, stay tuned!) In general, this is what I’ve found:

1) Teaching abroad is MUCH more independent

When I studied abroad, I was assigned a host family, had a comprehensive orientation, went on organized excursions, and generally had a ton of resources available to me. Here, we’re essentially totally on our own. (Caveat: major shoutout to BEDA for setting up NIEs and bank accounts for us!) We even got an email over the summer that more or less told us we would be unable to communicate with our coordinators until we arrived in Spain.

2) Where we all spend our time

For study abroad, everyone came to the IES center every day, making it really easy to meet and get to know people. Here, we’re all scattered at schools around the city and suburbs of Madrid. We met for 2 days of orientation and have class 2x a month, and for that we’re divided into 4 different groups. There’s still a large percentage of BEDA that I haven’t met, and probably never will.

3) Making/ saving money >>>> Spending money

No explanation needed.

4) I’m actually meeting locals

At least in my experience, study abroad is like living in an American bubble. Here, my coworkers, roommates and some friends are Spanish. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with spending more time with Americans, but I’m definitely spending more time with Spaniards than I did with Argentines.

5) Language

I studied abroad to learn Spanish, I’m living abroad to teach English. In other words, the focus of my day in Argentina was Spanish, but here it’s English. Will this affect how much Spanish I learn? Ask me in a few months! It’s actually really cool to be teaching English because it’s forcing me to really think about all the grammar, vocabulary, and customs I had previously taken for granted. And I love doing that!

I’m very happy with both experiences, but in different ways. I definitely prefer working over school although, really, how much studying actually happens during study abroad. Other than that though, I really can’t decide if study abroad or teaching abroad is better!

Things that happened during my first week of work

• I have the same glasses as one of the 3rd graders.
• One of the 2nd grade students told me he was seventy years old.
• Another told me that the year was 2,000,013.
• One of the teachers told the class he likes to dance, but only after a couple of beers.
• Another teacher told me to fake a British accent so the kids would understand me better. I also got to (read: was forced to) brush up on American/British English differences, because here they learn British English.
• I bonded with approx. 10 million preteen Spanish girls over our shared love for One Direction.
• On the first day of my high school class, one of there kids in the back row threw up and the class freaked out.
• On the first day of another, they asked me to describe what a fraternity is and asked why college in the US is so expensive. I’m not sure which was harder to answer.
• One of my teachers insisted I come to class late so I would have time to take a coffee break.
• I learned how much more open Spaniards are — On the first day in the high school, I was asked if I liked Obama, who I voted for, if I had a boyfriend (or a girlfriend), if I liked to go out to bars, and what I thought of Spanish guys. And the teacher was 100% okay with the students asking these questions!

I’m still figuring things out, but I really like my school and think that I’m going to have a great experience working there! Some other BEDA-ers I’ve talked to have problems with their schools over- or under-working them, but so far my level of responsibility has felt just right (#goldilocks). I also really like my coordinator and the other teachers. Here’s hoping the rest of the year continues to go this well!

 

Better late than never – my piso hunt

I’ve been living in my apartment for about two weeks, so I guess it’s about time for me to write about how I found it! As I mentioned before, I booked a week in a hostel for when I first arrived in Madrid, which is very typical for auxiliares or other young foreigners coming to live here. After two days of orientation, I had the rest of the week to find an apartment. After looking at a lot of craigslist-esque websites and sending lots of unanswered emails, I knew I had to take a different approach. I downloaded the idealista app on my iPhone and realized that there was a feature that lets you search for apartments close to your current location. I knew which metro stations I wanted to live by (or at least I thought I did, more on that later), so I decided to physically go to each metro stop, do a search on the app, and call places that were within a few blocks and within my price range.

At first I was really nervous to call random people in Spanish. I hate talking on the phone in English, let alone in a foreign language! Maybe it’s because they’re used to international students, but everyone I talked to was able to understand me. Apartment hunting in Madrid is unique (or at least different from Rochester) because everything moves very fast. I only called people that had posted in the past week, but probably half of them had already been taken by the time I called. Those people that I did contact told me to come visit either that day or the next morning. I visited five apartments over 2 and a half days, but I know people who did way more!

At first, I thought I was going to have to take the cercanias commuter train to my school, so I was looking to live in Atocha, near the train station. After seeing my fourth apartment, I went and sat at the metro again to do another search, and started to feel really stressed out — I hadn’t yet seen a place that I really loved, and everywhere was going to be at least a 90 minute commute from work. Then I got an email from my school coordinator. He told me that there was a direct bus from the Moncloa station to the school that would only take 30 minutes. I immediately went back to my hostel and called him for details, and decided to completely start my search over, this time looking in the Moncloa/Argüelles area. This was also really stressful! Luckily I knew a few other people looking to live there, so I asked them if they had any leads. I got a few phone numbers from my friend Val, and was able to make an appointment for the very same afternoon at the piso I would eventually live in.

When I arrived at this apartment, I immediately knew that I liked it. It was 5 minutes from my metro, within my price range, had a large common area, was with Spaniards, and was within my price range. I asked the girl who showed me the place if other people were interested in taking it, and she said someone else was coming to see it — in ten minutes! I had heard a lot of stories about people calling back just an hour after seeing an apartment to say they wanted it, only to hear that it had been taken. I knew that if I wanted to live here, I had to say something right then and there. I took a few minutes to think about it, and told my future roommate that I wanted to live here. It was really awkward when the next girl came to tour it. She was with her parents, and I was awkwardly sitting on the living room couch the whole time. I didn’t know how to introduce myself (“Hi! I’m the girl that just agreed to live here so… you’re out of luck.” ??). Luckily they only stayed 10 minutes and then left, leaving me and my future roommates to discuss details.

I was told I could move in whenever I wanted, and there was no rush on paying the rent or the deposit. Everyone else I have talked to had the same exact experience. The concept of a security deposit is also quite different — it’s not to cover potential damages, but rather to guarantee that you will stay for the agreed upon time. In other words, my deposit will be used to pay for rent for my last two months here. After dealing with a frustrating landlord this summer, it’s SO refreshing to live somewhere where people trust each other and there’s not a constant threat of legal action for every minor infraction.

Another interesting thing is (usually) that you rent by the room here, and in most places if one of your roommates leaves, you’re not held responsible for their rent. It’s so much better! Pretty much everyone I know lives with randos, but I don’t mind. Living with Spaniards is also a great way to get more integrated into the city. I live with one other American (who I didn’t previously know), a girl from Poland who has been in Spain for 15 years, and 2 Spaniards. I’ve only met two of them, but so far it’s working out really well!

If you want to see photos of my piso, here‘s the link!

I’m doing these posts totally out of order

I’ve been doing so much for the past week and a half that it’s really hard to condense and simplify everything into blog posts! It was especially difficult to write when I first arrived because I spent a week living out of a suitcase in a 12-person hostel dorm room. My bed was the top left in the picture below:

I’ll write another post about my apartment hunt later, but when I arrived in Spain I had no idea where I’d be living for the next ten months (I feel like that sounds way more dramatic than it is though!) I didn’t think it would be a good idea to agree to an apartment without seeing it first, and I didn’t even really want to preemptively choose a neighborhood since this is my first time in Madrid. The majority of auxiliares stay in hotels, hostels, or other short term accommodations when they first arrive, and the others have au pair or similar situations set up that they move right in to. I chose my hostel because it was only €10 a night, had really good reviews on hostelworld, and some other BEDA people had posted in our facebook group that they’d be staying there as well. Staying in the hostel was a really great decision! Not only did I save a ton of money, but I met a lot of really cool people — other BEDAers, travelers, and people doing erasmus (what Europeans apparently call study abroad). I really like constantly being surrounded by people, especially when I’m in a new city where I don’t know anyone! I moved out of the hostel a few days ago, but I’ve still been hanging out with a bunch of people I met there on a pretty regular basis.

My second and third days in Spain I had BEDA orientation. Although, when I say “orientation” I really mean “designated time to fill out a ton of paperwork and listen to long boring lectures.” Unlike orientations I’ve been to for other programs (college and study abroad), there was no time to meet other people and no advice for daily life, dealing culture shock, etc. Luckily we had a few coffee breaks so I met some people then, but I wasn’t super impressed with orientation. However, it’s not the end of the world — so far it has been pretty easy to make friends, and it is definitely gratifying to be able to figure out so many things on my own! There also seems to be a huge, helpful network of auxiliares and other young expats in Madrid that I’ve only just explored the surface of. I’ve realized that living abroad is very different from study abroad because it’s much more independent. I think I like that though! 🙂

First visit to my colegio!

Today I visited the colegio where I’ll be working for the first time. It’s in Collado Villalba, a town a little north west of Madrid. When I first was accepted to BEDA and looked up the location of my school, it made me really nervous — how was I going to live in the city and commute out in a reasonable amount of time?? (I’m really not a small town person, so living anywhere but central Madrid was pretty much always out of the question, haha). So this summer I did a ton of research and discovered I could take the cercanías commuter train out to my town. Phew! When I arrived in Madrid a few days ago I emailed my school coordinator and asked him what bus to take from the train station to the school, and he responded with a really long and detailed email (he’s been so helpful throughout all of this!) about how to take a bus. But… my total commute time would be at least an hour and a half. To me this would still be better than living far away from the center/ my new friends, but wow! LUCKILY the last sentence of his email said that there was a direct bus from the Moncloa metro/bus station to a stop right outside the school! He said if I wanted more details I should ask. I called him immediately and long story short, it was perfect! 🙂

This morning I woke up early to get my monthly transport card, the abono. It was pretty easy! And it’s really nice because I pay a flat fee each month (€84, it would have been about €30 less if I were just 1 year younger but… es lo que hay) and get unlimited trips on the metro, buses, trains, and longer distance inter-city buses. There are two of the longer distance buses that go to my school. I just have to walk 5 minutes from my apartment to get to the bus station, hop on a coach bus (woot woot comfy seats!), ride for half an hour, and get dropped off 5 minutes from my school. And the buses come every 10-15 minutes, so it really couldn’t be easier! 🙂

So today I got off the bus and walked to the school (side note: thank GOD for google maps/ smart phones! I would be helplessly lost in Spain (and my own country, let’s be real…) without technology!) and was immediately greeted by a Jesus statue at the entrance — definitely working at a catholic school! The campus is beautiful. It’s 3 buildings, playing fields, etc. all contained in a forest (okay probably not a forest.) But my boss told me that there are lots of squirrels and sometimes wild pigs! You would think the pigs would be afraid to show their faces with all the jamón they eat here… ANYWAYS. The school grounds are really nice. I walked in to the main building and was greeted by a nun (a nun!) who seemed to know exactly who I was (one of these things is not like the other) and told me to wait a few minutes for my coordinator to be free.

I met my coordinator soon after and he took me to this reallyyyy nice room to chat. Like I felt like I was in a wealthy old woman’s living room. We talked about the school, my resume/experience, and general school stuff. He is very friendly and it seems like he will be really great to work with! After that he gave me a tour of the school. When we toured the upstairs of the main building, we heard someone furiously knocking from the other side of a closed door. My coordinator went to find out what what was going on, and it turns out a maintenance worker had been locked inside! We let him out, but it was so ridiculous.

I also saw a ton of the kids, and they are ADORABLE. One of them asked me, in Spanish, if I was the new English teacher and when I responded in English (I’m only allowed to speak Spanish around other staff members) he got really adorably bashful, even though all I said was “Hi! What is your name?” I can’t wait to start working with him and the other kids! I go back on Tuesday for another meeting and then start working on Wednesday, I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say after that!

tl;dr version — My school is an easy 45 minute commute away, the school grounds are beautiful, the kids are adorable, and I really like my boss.

All packed and ready to go!

And my big bag is 3 pounds under the weight limit!

Visa: success!!

After weeks of gathering the required documents, I had my visa appointment this morning and was approved! I knew I would be, but I didn’t expect them to do it on the spot! I still have to wait several weeks for them to mail my passport back to me, but I’m in no rush. (Much) more importantly: I became the mayor of the Spanish consulate on foursquare when I “checked in” this morning. Winning Spain before I even arrive!!!

Another realization I had this morning:
July 15, 2012: I arrived at JFK after 4.5 months in Argentina
July 15, 2013: I arrived at JFK to apply for my Spanish visa the following day
July 15, 2014: ????