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 :)
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