This morning I went to the Rastro with Stephanie and Karin. For those of you who don't remember, the Rastro is a street market that is open every Sunday. I went with possibility of buying something, but with no intentions to buy anything, but I ended up getting a scarf because it was cheap and I am already tired of wearing the only two scarves that I brought with me. I also saw many other things that I wanted to buy, but didn't. However, I did decide that I wanted to buy another sweater, because it is getting chilly here now, but instead of buying it at the Rastro, I bought it at a chino. I actually had a whole outfit picked out, but Stephanie and Karin helped talk me out of it, because it wasn't a necessity. Really the sweater wasn't a necessity either, but it was so cute and simple and it will definitely keep me warm. :) I think we already planned to go again to the Rastro next week. It's hard to go and not buy something. I have to at least wait for my next paycheck though. I am broke after buying all of my plane tickets for Christmas.
Anyway, this afternoon a girl came to look at the apartment because we still are looking for a new roommate. She is English, which isn't ideal because I would like another native-Spanish speaker here, however we're not going to turn her away if she doesn't want the place. We still have our English and Spanish days, so hopefully she would join in on that.
Other than that tonight has been really relaxed. I got to Skype my family, I watched Silver Linings Playbook, and I am going to fall asleep watching Up.
On another note, Madrid's streets are slightly cleaner. It has it's good days and bad days, but I have seen some cleaners here and there. Also, I promise to have the Valencia post up tomorrow. :)
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Los juegos del hambre: en llamas
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| Katniss Everdeen..our twin! |
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| Stephanie, Karin, and I ready for the Hunger Games |
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| Me with my "bow and arrow" |
We some quick snacks at the grocery store and then went to the theater for the movie. And It was soo good! If you haven't seen or heard of it yet, here's the trailer...
Saturday, November 23, 2013
In vs. On
Okay, so I got up yesterday and went to school. I had only two classes with the the students today and then the teachers' class. In the teachers' class today, we got started talking about school (like the difference between color vs. paint), which led to talking about daily routines, which led to talking about school, which led to talking about the prepositions "in" and "on." I got the question "Do you sit in a chair or on a chair?" My first answer was in; however, after some thinking, I realized that both could be used. You can sit "in" a chair or "on" a chair. Logically, I was trying to figure out why both are correct because really there are so many things that are either "on" or "in," but not both. For example, you sit on the floor, on a couch, on a bench, in a car, etc. but why is it that "in" a chair seems to be the most natural thing to say. Logically, you sit in a chair if it has arms, but a couch and bench has arms, too. And even if a chair didn't have arms, I think I would still say "I'm sitting in the chair." So pretty much, it came down to me saying they could use both, but I don't know why. And throw the British English wrench in there and then you have a mess. I'm just going to go ahead and assume that the British say "on," but I really have no idea. Anyway, after the very productive class, I went home and relaxed for quite awhile. I watched Glee and Grey's and avoided blogging about Valencia (again..whoops). Anyway, I also was looking more stuff up for Christmas vacation as well as Thanksgiving.
Stephanie, Karin, and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of people. We should have less than 20 people, but that's still a lot to get ready for, especially when none of us have really ever prepared a Thanksgiving dinner before. So last night we went to a shop called Taste of America to see what they had for a Thanksgiving feast. They had some bagged stuffing and gravy packets, which we would have gotten, but Stephanie's sister actually mailed her some so that wasn't necessary. They also had a 100 dollar turkey (no way were we buying that), and pumpkin pie filling (this we did get!). We also went to a bakery or two to see if they could cook our turkey for us (once we found one). When I was in Peru, a bakery cooked our turkey on Thanksgiving, but I thought it would be an odd question here to ask, but no one seemed to surprised by our question. Anyway, we went to two grocery stores to compare prices and to look for a turkey. We didn't find a turkey, but we found turkey fillets so we decided just to do those, so we'll go back on Friday and buy them (we're not having Thanksgiving until Saturday, since we're all working girls and have no time to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for 20 on a weekday. But yea, we decided that instead of trying to find/buy a whole turkey and then figure out how to cook it, we would just buy turkey fillets. Obviously, that is not as festive, but it sure is a whole lot easier. Although I will say that I am still learning a whole heck of a lot about turkeys, but I still have no idea what to do with it. For example, I learned what "brining a turkey" is, but I have no idea if I should do it with the turkey fillets or not, and I don't know how to season them so that they taste Thanksgiving-y, if you know what I mean. Any suggestions or advice are welcome. :)
After going on our little Thanksgiving hunt, I came back to my place, made dinner, and hung out for a little bit. Then Karin and Stephanie joined me at my place and we watched the end of Over the Hedge and watched a rerun of La Voz on T.V. Also, Karin practiced doing Stephanie and I's hair because we went to see the Hunger Games, so we of course had to have our hair like Katniss Everdeen's! But I'll talk about that more in the next blog. Anyway, that was my day and as soon as the girls left, I was in bed and right to sleep. Now, I am probably going to bed tonight and I will still be behind by one blog. I will eventually catch up and will write about Valencia as well. Have a good night and for those of you in college, Happy Thanksgiving break! I'm jealous. :)
Stephanie, Karin, and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of people. We should have less than 20 people, but that's still a lot to get ready for, especially when none of us have really ever prepared a Thanksgiving dinner before. So last night we went to a shop called Taste of America to see what they had for a Thanksgiving feast. They had some bagged stuffing and gravy packets, which we would have gotten, but Stephanie's sister actually mailed her some so that wasn't necessary. They also had a 100 dollar turkey (no way were we buying that), and pumpkin pie filling (this we did get!). We also went to a bakery or two to see if they could cook our turkey for us (once we found one). When I was in Peru, a bakery cooked our turkey on Thanksgiving, but I thought it would be an odd question here to ask, but no one seemed to surprised by our question. Anyway, we went to two grocery stores to compare prices and to look for a turkey. We didn't find a turkey, but we found turkey fillets so we decided just to do those, so we'll go back on Friday and buy them (we're not having Thanksgiving until Saturday, since we're all working girls and have no time to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for 20 on a weekday. But yea, we decided that instead of trying to find/buy a whole turkey and then figure out how to cook it, we would just buy turkey fillets. Obviously, that is not as festive, but it sure is a whole lot easier. Although I will say that I am still learning a whole heck of a lot about turkeys, but I still have no idea what to do with it. For example, I learned what "brining a turkey" is, but I have no idea if I should do it with the turkey fillets or not, and I don't know how to season them so that they taste Thanksgiving-y, if you know what I mean. Any suggestions or advice are welcome. :)
After going on our little Thanksgiving hunt, I came back to my place, made dinner, and hung out for a little bit. Then Karin and Stephanie joined me at my place and we watched the end of Over the Hedge and watched a rerun of La Voz on T.V. Also, Karin practiced doing Stephanie and I's hair because we went to see the Hunger Games, so we of course had to have our hair like Katniss Everdeen's! But I'll talk about that more in the next blog. Anyway, that was my day and as soon as the girls left, I was in bed and right to sleep. Now, I am probably going to bed tonight and I will still be behind by one blog. I will eventually catch up and will write about Valencia as well. Have a good night and for those of you in college, Happy Thanksgiving break! I'm jealous. :)
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Hay viento
Okay, so again I am tired and my mind is elsewhere. I am still trying to figure out Christmas vacation, like hostels, what to see, what to do, how much I can spend, etc. Although I am getting really really excited about it. All of my flights are booked! If you didn't catch my blog from yesterday, then I will repeat. I am going to from Madrid to Sevilla to Barcelona to Budapest to Dublin to Madrid. There's one more thing that I haven't told you that is more important than going to any of those places... My boyfriend will be joining me in Dublin and then coming to Madrid with me for a few days! I'm so excited for that! It should be really fun!
Other than getting all of that situated today, the other important thing that happened was that I went to my appointment for my TIE. I left school slightly early in order to get there right at 5 p.m., but I still waited in line for over an hour. I had a great conversation with a girl from Maryland while I was in line though, so that was nice and helped pass the time. Also, we had to wait outside and it's finally getting cold here in Madrid. I had gloves on, plus the wind makes it colder. The whole thing was pretty much waiting though, because once at the desk, I pretty much just handed over some documents, they took my fingerprints, and then said to come back in 25 days to pick the card up. Easy enough, right? Hopefully, I do get the card in 25 days or less because then I don't have to worry about getting authorization to leave the country during Christmas. With my TIE, I can travel in and out of the country without troubles. Fingers-crossed.
Oh, I guess one more important thing happened. I went to a Spanish class tonight! I have been looking for one for awhile and it was getting hard to find one that worked with my schedule, but I finally found one! It's actually twice a week, but I can only go once a week, but that's okay. It's better than nothing. And I felt really good about tonight. It's exactly the type of class that I wanted. I'm excited to keep taking it. With that, the intercambios, and the language exchange with my teacher, I feel like I am finally getting what I want from the language here. Everybody speaks too much English here. It's frustrating. But like I said, now I feel good. :)
Anyway, now I am trying to plan the lesson tomorrow for the teachers while occasionally getting sidetracked by Christmas vacation plans. :) Anyway, I should get going. I hope you all had great Thursdays. Good night!
P.S. Sorry I haven't gotten to the Valencia post yet...
Other than getting all of that situated today, the other important thing that happened was that I went to my appointment for my TIE. I left school slightly early in order to get there right at 5 p.m., but I still waited in line for over an hour. I had a great conversation with a girl from Maryland while I was in line though, so that was nice and helped pass the time. Also, we had to wait outside and it's finally getting cold here in Madrid. I had gloves on, plus the wind makes it colder. The whole thing was pretty much waiting though, because once at the desk, I pretty much just handed over some documents, they took my fingerprints, and then said to come back in 25 days to pick the card up. Easy enough, right? Hopefully, I do get the card in 25 days or less because then I don't have to worry about getting authorization to leave the country during Christmas. With my TIE, I can travel in and out of the country without troubles. Fingers-crossed.
Oh, I guess one more important thing happened. I went to a Spanish class tonight! I have been looking for one for awhile and it was getting hard to find one that worked with my schedule, but I finally found one! It's actually twice a week, but I can only go once a week, but that's okay. It's better than nothing. And I felt really good about tonight. It's exactly the type of class that I wanted. I'm excited to keep taking it. With that, the intercambios, and the language exchange with my teacher, I feel like I am finally getting what I want from the language here. Everybody speaks too much English here. It's frustrating. But like I said, now I feel good. :)
Anyway, now I am trying to plan the lesson tomorrow for the teachers while occasionally getting sidetracked by Christmas vacation plans. :) Anyway, I should get going. I hope you all had great Thursdays. Good night!
P.S. Sorry I haven't gotten to the Valencia post yet...
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Vuelos
Okay, so it's late and I don't feel like writing a super long post. Here are the highlights of my day...
School,
Four private lessons that all went very well,
And....
I have plane tickets for Christmas break!
I will be going from Madrid to Sevilla to Barcelona to Budapest, Hungary to Dublin, Ireland and back to Madrid! Woo.
I have all transportation booked minus the bus to Sevilla and the flight back from Ireland. I tried paying for the flight, but I think my bank account had to tell me enough was enough so it didn't work. I will try again tomorrow. :)
That's my day.
Good night!
School,
Four private lessons that all went very well,
And....
I have plane tickets for Christmas break!
I will be going from Madrid to Sevilla to Barcelona to Budapest, Hungary to Dublin, Ireland and back to Madrid! Woo.
I have all transportation booked minus the bus to Sevilla and the flight back from Ireland. I tried paying for the flight, but I think my bank account had to tell me enough was enough so it didn't work. I will try again tomorrow. :)
That's my day.
Good night!
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Dos horas es poco tiempo
Just throwing this out there right off the bat...I will not be getting to my Valencia blog again. Sorry, it's been another busy day. I have school all day. The students are getting ready to finish their body unit and start on the next one. The students are still very interested in teaching me Spanish, although they continuously ask me to say the same words over and over again. Haha. I'm sorry, but I really don't have much else to say about school. I suck. School was school. Students will be students.
After school, I had my language exchange with the teacher at my school. It went really well, except I think that we both have realized that two hours is not enough! There is so much to learn and so little time! It's crazy! It really is helpful though and I think we are both learning SO much. I will also say though that it is impossible to know if I am giving her the right answers to her questions. I pretty much follow everything with "Yep, that's right...well, I don't know about British English." Seriously, it's impossible, so many things could be "wrong" that I am telling her, just because they are American English and not British English. Also, it's so hard to tell her things like, "Yea, that's grammatically incorrect, but we still say it." Ha. For example, him/her and he/she. When talking, we never (almost never) say him/her or he/she. We just use the collective words them and they. It was really funny because I was like, well that's incorrect, but it's what we say. That sounds absolutely absurd, but it's true. Silly, English! I obviously made sure that she knew what was grammatically correct and told her that if she was ever writing it, she should do so correctly...but seriously, it's ridiculous. English is difficult...
Anyway, on Tuesday nights, I usually go to the intercambio, but I skipped tonight. I know..that's bad. :/ But I dedicated a lot of tonight to more planning of Christmas vacation. I bought my plane ticket to Barcelona. So as of right now, I am officially going to Sevilla and Barcelona for Christmas! Two other places on the list are still Budapest and now Istanbul. Those last two may or may not change, but I'm sure I will be telling you (hopefully soon!) what my final plans are. It's hard to keep it cheaper while at the same time watching the flight prices fluctuate so much. It's so risky to wait or to buy now. It's quite annoying, but I'm figuring it out. :)
Right now though, it is time for bed. I'm tired and I really need some chapstick. So I am going to go take care of both of those things. Have a good night.
After school, I had my language exchange with the teacher at my school. It went really well, except I think that we both have realized that two hours is not enough! There is so much to learn and so little time! It's crazy! It really is helpful though and I think we are both learning SO much. I will also say though that it is impossible to know if I am giving her the right answers to her questions. I pretty much follow everything with "Yep, that's right...well, I don't know about British English." Seriously, it's impossible, so many things could be "wrong" that I am telling her, just because they are American English and not British English. Also, it's so hard to tell her things like, "Yea, that's grammatically incorrect, but we still say it." Ha. For example, him/her and he/she. When talking, we never (almost never) say him/her or he/she. We just use the collective words them and they. It was really funny because I was like, well that's incorrect, but it's what we say. That sounds absolutely absurd, but it's true. Silly, English! I obviously made sure that she knew what was grammatically correct and told her that if she was ever writing it, she should do so correctly...but seriously, it's ridiculous. English is difficult...
Anyway, on Tuesday nights, I usually go to the intercambio, but I skipped tonight. I know..that's bad. :/ But I dedicated a lot of tonight to more planning of Christmas vacation. I bought my plane ticket to Barcelona. So as of right now, I am officially going to Sevilla and Barcelona for Christmas! Two other places on the list are still Budapest and now Istanbul. Those last two may or may not change, but I'm sure I will be telling you (hopefully soon!) what my final plans are. It's hard to keep it cheaper while at the same time watching the flight prices fluctuate so much. It's so risky to wait or to buy now. It's quite annoying, but I'm figuring it out. :)
Right now though, it is time for bed. I'm tired and I really need some chapstick. So I am going to go take care of both of those things. Have a good night.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Es difícil inventar títulos
Okay, so today was my day off and it seemed long, but I got some things done-ish. And although done-ish doesn't seem like a good thing, it was still important and I was taking a step in the right direction to get things done. :) I started my morning by relaxing and eating breakfast. Then, I left to meet Stephanie to go get our pictures taken. Yep, that's right. Today was picture day. :) Not for school or anything, I had to get some pictures for my TIE, that ridiculous foreigner identification card that I keep talking about. My appointment for that is on Thursday..woohoo, so I think I am already ready for that...I think. The only unfortunate thing about having my appointment on Thursday is that I won't get to have my private lessons. So, I am missing out on a little extra money, but at least it's for an important thing. Because without my TIE, I will get deported. Haha.
Anyway, once I got home, I grabbed my grocery sacks (because you have to bring your own or pay for them) and I went grocery shopping. I believe I have mentioned this before and it probably won't be the last time I mention it, but grocery shopping is SO stressful. Not the actual shopping part, but the checking out. It hasn't gotten any easier/less stressful on me. Imagine you're at a store, you can only get as much as you can carry in the two big bags you bring to the store...Now imagine that you have to bag your own bags and pay at the same time...all the while, trying to hurry up so that you don't hold up the people behind you. Seriously, it's stressful. I feel like it shouldn't be, but it is. Trying to pay, trying to hurry, trying to not squish any bread or break any eggs (done both already), etc. And then, I feel like an idiot walking down the street with two overly filled bags of groceries while carrying other things that didn't fit in the bags. I don't think it will get any easier.
Anyway, after shopping, I ate lunch and started to research travel things for Christmas break. Also, I took a paper level test in order to enroll in a Spanish class. I tried going to a different place for lessons, but they couldn't really accommodate my schedule so I found another place that I think will work out. This afternoon I went to the school and met the coordinator and he seemed pretty cool and I already feel like I will learn a lot so I will be starting next Monday night, most likely. Once I got home from that, I did my weekly Monday cleaning and some laundry. I will say that our science experiment of a pumpkin is still on our terrace. Haha, I think it's to the point where we should just continue to let it decay all year...maybe not though.
Anyway, I started to blog about the weekend and then that just didn't happen. So still no Valencia blog, sorry. It will come though, don't worry. Tonight, a girl came over to talk about Christmas break. Stephanie and Karin have their own plans for Christmas break, so I posted on a website (one that is made up of teachers, like me) that I was looking for travel buddies for Christmas. I found a few people and one of them was able to come over to start planning tonight. So far, this is what we have. I'm going to Sevilla with Lucia until Christmas then going to Barcelona. Then, the original plan was to go to Prague for New Year's, then to Budapest, but Prague is pretty well booked already and super expensive, so we decided to switch them and go to Budapest for New Year's, then to Prague. So that's the plan right now, but also now I am thinking about cutting Prague out completely because it seriously jacks up the prices a lot on my vacations. I might try and choose a completely different place to go. Anyway, that's that. That was my day. Didn't book any planes, trains, or automobiles yet, but we are full swing into the planning process and it's pretty fun. Hope you all had good Mondays. Again, I'm sorry I didn't get to the Valencia post. Have a good night!
Anyway, once I got home, I grabbed my grocery sacks (because you have to bring your own or pay for them) and I went grocery shopping. I believe I have mentioned this before and it probably won't be the last time I mention it, but grocery shopping is SO stressful. Not the actual shopping part, but the checking out. It hasn't gotten any easier/less stressful on me. Imagine you're at a store, you can only get as much as you can carry in the two big bags you bring to the store...Now imagine that you have to bag your own bags and pay at the same time...all the while, trying to hurry up so that you don't hold up the people behind you. Seriously, it's stressful. I feel like it shouldn't be, but it is. Trying to pay, trying to hurry, trying to not squish any bread or break any eggs (done both already), etc. And then, I feel like an idiot walking down the street with two overly filled bags of groceries while carrying other things that didn't fit in the bags. I don't think it will get any easier.
Anyway, after shopping, I ate lunch and started to research travel things for Christmas break. Also, I took a paper level test in order to enroll in a Spanish class. I tried going to a different place for lessons, but they couldn't really accommodate my schedule so I found another place that I think will work out. This afternoon I went to the school and met the coordinator and he seemed pretty cool and I already feel like I will learn a lot so I will be starting next Monday night, most likely. Once I got home from that, I did my weekly Monday cleaning and some laundry. I will say that our science experiment of a pumpkin is still on our terrace. Haha, I think it's to the point where we should just continue to let it decay all year...maybe not though.
Anyway, I started to blog about the weekend and then that just didn't happen. So still no Valencia blog, sorry. It will come though, don't worry. Tonight, a girl came over to talk about Christmas break. Stephanie and Karin have their own plans for Christmas break, so I posted on a website (one that is made up of teachers, like me) that I was looking for travel buddies for Christmas. I found a few people and one of them was able to come over to start planning tonight. So far, this is what we have. I'm going to Sevilla with Lucia until Christmas then going to Barcelona. Then, the original plan was to go to Prague for New Year's, then to Budapest, but Prague is pretty well booked already and super expensive, so we decided to switch them and go to Budapest for New Year's, then to Prague. So that's the plan right now, but also now I am thinking about cutting Prague out completely because it seriously jacks up the prices a lot on my vacations. I might try and choose a completely different place to go. Anyway, that's that. That was my day. Didn't book any planes, trains, or automobiles yet, but we are full swing into the planning process and it's pretty fun. Hope you all had good Mondays. Again, I'm sorry I didn't get to the Valencia post. Have a good night!
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