Thanksgiving, "Football," and Travelling!

My American friends and I decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner, which made us all very very happy. We went to one of my friends houses (who had an oven!) and we all brought something to eat. I was supposed to bring mashed potatoes but I unfortnately had no idea what I was doing and was not confident in even making this, so my POLISH roommate Magda took over and made the mashed potatoes for me... Thank God! We went to the dinner and there were 12 people there, 10 of us from the United States. One of the girls made a real turkey, and gravy, and someone brought a green bean casserole and baked macaroni and cheese, and one of the girls mothers was visiting her so she brought apple pies... we were all sighing in happiness, thankful for our makeshift American Thanksgiving dinner that made us feel a little more at home. Our French friend made us hot spiced red wine, and we all sat around and drank this together with the brasero under our table and laughed and talked and enjoyed our evening immensly.

I LOVE my private classes! I love being the teacher and planning out my OWN lessons and getting to know the kids. My first class with the teenagers went really well. 12 students showed up, and I just basically did a little introduction lesson. Today I have the next class, and I plan on playing some games and teaching some stuff. ;) I also had my class with the 4 girls last week. They are really cute but they can barely understand me when I talk, so we went over their workbooks and did really simple activities. I'm hoping that I can play some games with them too. They are still young and therefore eager to learn. They would get really excited when they knew the right answer and the hour passed really quickly! I still feel a little nervous before the lessons, but during and afterwards I'm really happy with the result. I made it very clear during the lesson for my teenagers that they are paying for this lesson, and if they pass this exam it will help them to get jobs, and so I want respect and I want them to participate and ask questions. And I think they listened to me... at least I hope they did!

Tonight I went to watch a soccer game at the bar. It was a very important game, between the two most popular teams in Spain: FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. My town is pretty much split down the middle at who they cheer for. All the kids at my school have a favorite team and think it's CRAZY that I don't have one. At halftime of the soccer game my friend Kate and I ran to get a kabob and ran back to the bar... so there I was sitting in a bar, watching a soccer game, eating a (DELICIOUS) kabob, drinking a beer. So Spanish. Barcelona ended up smashing Madrid 5-0, and while walking back to my apartment, people driving in their cars were shouting, "BARSA!!" And the guy walking in front of me yelled back, "PUTA BARSA," literally saing, "BITCH BARSA," but more like, "F*** Barcelona!" It made me laugh. Spaniards are very passionate about soccer (football).

Yesterday I was invited to a Spanish friends house... it was a celebration for her birthday, so we had coffee and some drinks and she made us all pizza. Her children were there, as well as her husband, my friend Will, and an English family that has been living here for five years now. One of the daughters goes to my school, and the family is extremely nice. We had a wonderful time. I feel that the more people I meet and the busier I get, the happier I am here. Walking around the town yesterday, I was reminded of how beautiful it is and how lucky I am to be here, even if sometimes it seems difficult to be so far away from home and my family and friends.

Exciting news: this weekend I am heading to Scotland and Ireland for a week! I am SOOOO EXCITED to get out of my town and Spain and experience more of EUROPE with my friends! And it's snowing in Scotland right now, so I will feel like it's really December and the Christmas season. And after a week, about the time that I start to get tired of snow, I will come back here and be in just the rain again. Oh well. And that's another thing... its begun to rain here. I feel like I'm back in Oregon! But unlike Oregon, I don't have a car and therefore must walk in the rain if I want to go ANYWHERE (I finally bought an umbrella...), and we don't have a dryer so my clothes take forever to get dry, even though they're hanging under shelter! I'm going to have to find a way to move them inside.

More exciting news: I GET PAID NEXT WEEK! Unfortunatley it looks like the 700 euros will just tide me over living in my town for a month, what with food and rent and little excursions to Granada and buying a couple pieces of clothing... but I have my private classes now, and hopefully will be getting some money for Christmas that will go towards my trip to London/Belgium :)

Love you and miss you all, I hope you're doing well! I'm missing you during these holidays but I'll be home in 6 months, don't you worry :)

Private Classes

I FINALLY have private classes all set up! Fran helped me get students signed up for the classes I'm going to give for their Trinity University English examination... there are 22 who want to take the class! So I'm splitting them up into two groups, two classes a week for each group. And two days ago I met with the woman who runs the conversation group I go to and she took me to a beautiful apartment where her friend lives, and I met four mothers who want me to teach English to their daughters for one hour a week. Basically what I will have to do is just speak to them in English and help them with their English homework. I can't believe I'm going to make money by doing something I barely have to think about; talking in English.

I have also been trying to learn French. Last week the French teacher at my school started talking to me and so I told her that I was interested in learning the language. She told me to wait a moment, went over to the cupboard, and pulled out three books for me... first and third year French textbooks with CD's included! That day I went home smiling, and remembered that Laurie has been listening to podcasts to learn a little Spanish, so I did some research and found some free podcasts that teach French! I have been listening to these for the past week, and I am planning on calling my French friend here and doing some sort of trade-off between learning English for him and French for me. I am determined to at least know SOMETHING for when I go to Belgium in January.

Last night Magda and I went out with one of our friends to a salsa lesson at one of the bars... it was SO FUN! I love dancing! After we got done stumbling around and laughing at ourselves, the teacher and some of the Spanish girls danced together and I just stared at them. They were SO GOOD. I was almost hypnotized by it... they were so fluid and sexy and awesome. I WANT TO BE LIKE THAT! So we have vowed that we will go here every Friday night until we are good, haha. Today we are going in one of our friends CARS (Woo!) to Lucena, a nearby town that apparently has good shopping. I need to buy some boots before I head off to Scotland and Ireland in two weeks... also I am celebrating the fact that if all these private lessons work out, I will be almost doubling my salary. I FINALLY WILL HAVE MONEY!!! That feels pretty great. I have never been so broke in my life.

It's quiet around here...

Sorry I haven't written in awhile, but there really hasn't been that many things going on for me!

Last weekend I finally got out of town and went to Granada, where I met up with one of my college friends, Linnaea! She is teaching English here as well, but somewhere up north past Madrid. It was SO GOOD to see her! She is the first person I have seen from home, and it was wonderful. Our hostel had a view of the Alhambra, and when we opened the window in the morning, it was right there. Absolutely beautiful... I never get tired of looking at the Alhambra! Anyways, we spent 2 days in Granada, where we drank tea and mojitos and wine, smoked hookah, ate tapas, went shopping, explored the city, met new people in our hostel, danced, ate churros and chocolate, and generally had a great time! I was thinking about actually moving to Granada for a while, but then realized that it is just much easier to live here in Priego... I really hate moving and though it would be GREAT to live in Granada, I can save money here and then visit often. Granada is the coolest city I've ever been in, and I just LOVE that I can get on a bus and be there within 2 hours. On Saturday night Linnaea and I went to a flamenco show near the caves where the gypsies live. The show was in a theater and the back side of it was just a huge wall of glass, so we could see the Alhambra lit up behind the dancers, singers, and guitar players. Flamenco is so passionate and intense, an extremely unique dance that I just love to watch!

Also I have been meeting up with some of the teachers from my school on Thursday nights for drinks, which has been really fun! A great opportunity to practice my Spanish, since I feel like I have been speaking English a lot more than I want to. Last night I went to a meeting that my director was having with some of the parents at the school who are interested in their kid taking the Trinity University English Exam... basically it tells any employers or universities that the student who took it has a good level of English, and a lot of people feel that this is a great opportunity. So I went there and my director had me introduce myself to the parents... I stood up in front of all of them, and I felt myself blushing, but I'm pretty sure I spoke really well! I hope this works out so that I get some private classes, for something to do in the afternoons as well as some extra money so that I can travel more! Also in all my free time, I've started to write. Mostly because I love to write, but also because I want to see if I can write a book. It's always been a goal of mine, so since I have so much extra time, I though, why not start now? I really enjoy doing it, so it seems like a good use of my time.

Anyways, that's about all for now. Not much has been going on for me, but I hope you all are doing well!