Sevilla-Venice-Sevilla

Sevilla: For most of my flights this year, the Sevilla airport will be most convenient. I am okay with this, as it is a great city and I enjoy returning to my old "home." I met up with one friend going on the trip to Venice in the early evening before our flight. We were craving Chinese food, so I tried to remember where I ate my one Chinese meal while studying abroad. When I knew we were close, we asked for directions. People sent us all. over. town. But, we eventually came to a different Chinese restaurant that was just as good. Two of our other friends arrived to Sevilla shortly after this, so we reunited with them and headed to the airport for a little sleepover before our early morning flight. 

This is the restaurant I was trying to find.

Venice- Day 1: Once in Venice the next day, we met up with the 5th member of our group. We found our hostel by wandering through the little streets until we reached Via TraGHETTO (I'm sure the Italian have a more elegant way of pronouncing that, but it made it easy to remember our street name). We saw a unique Da Vinici Museum that had interactive inventions in addition to the paintings and sculptures. We also stumbled upon what became our favorite café, which we returned to two more times during our short stay. For dinner that night we went to a small Italian restaurant, where the waiters made a couple move to another table so our group of 5 would could sit together ...that was a bit awkward, sitting outside or waiting would have been alright. Our group continued to the University area that night, which had a pretty fun atmosphere & there were a lot of people out.

On the Rialto Bridge

Venice- Day 2: Although Italian mealtimes are similar to America's, we had a surprisingly hard time following them because we are so accustomed to our Spanish schedules. Luckily we did eat lunch early (for us) this day because we found a cool restaurant in which the entrance was almost hidden. We ate on the outside terrace & there were plants and flowers all around. We saw the major tourist attractions this afternoon, including San Marco's Basilica & the Doge's Palace. Although they were both gorgeous, I actually enjoyed the palace more. I think part of it was that I knew the basilica would be incredible, but since I did not know much about the palace, I went in with very few expectations. Many Doges lived in the palace at the same time, so it had to be huge. In addition to living quarters and salons, it also had meeting rooms and prisons. All of the rooms were filled with artwork. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped in the University square just to relax and people-watch for a few minutes. We opted to participate in the pasta + salad dinner our hostel hosted this night, which was a great, affordable choice!

Inside Doge's Palace

Venice- Day 3: Venice has a few surrounding smaller islands, in addition to the main island, so we chose the explore Murano on our last day. Murano is known for its glasswork (sculptures, dishes, glasses, clocks, vases, etc.) We saw some pretty neat artwork and I loved all the colors of the glass. There wasn't a whole lot more to do on this island though, so we did not stay too long. One fun thing we did on the way over was take a gondola! Well, a 50 cent public gondola that is. It lasts about 2-3 minutes and just takes you straight across the Grand Canal with 8-10 other people. All throughout the trip we devoted some time wandering through the cute streets and browsing the little shops of Venetian masks, and this day was no different. Masks were as cheap as 3.50€ and as expensive as a few hundred! Each of us was able to find one we liked on the lower end of that spectrum. It makes a unique room decoration & has definite potential for costume usage in the future.

Glass sculpture on Murano island. 

Sevilla, round 2: We arrived to Sevilla in the afternoon of the 31st. While walking to our hostel, we ran into another auxiliar! (One of my friends said, "I feel like auxiliares are so nice and helpful to each other, it's almost like we have automatic friendships because we are in similar situations" and I could not agree more. It is pretty cool to have a network of auxiliares all around Spain to meet up with while traveling.) For lunch we found a tapas restaurant with lots of variety and even more flavor. My friend Angela met up with us to explore Sevilla and celebrate Halloween. The Festival of the Nations was going on while we were in Sevilla; it was comprised of markets and food stands. Several of the markets represented other countries, and they sold purses, clothes, jewelry, wallets, belts, and candy, just to name a few items. In the food half, we were almost overwhelmed by the amount of options we had. Anyone who has lived in Spain knows that Spanish food is not spicy. Ever. Flavorful, yes. Delicious, yes. But spicy, no. So, we did want many other expats would do in our situation & created a meal out of a few of the countries with spicier food; however, we did not entirely stray from Spanish culture because we realized going at it tapas style (sharing one plate per country) allowed us to taste the most dishes. I already mentioned Halloween in my previous post, so check that out to hear about the rest of my trip.

Tasting various ethnic foods at the Festival of the Nations.

I know this post was long, so I'll leave you with a few extra pictures from the trip (:

Some of the more elaborate Venetian Masks 

Group shot along the Grand Canal

There were tons of little footbridges throughout the city.

San Marco's Basilica

This is near the palace that I loved.

Halloween in Spain

Several people have asked about Halloween over here, so here's a bit of an explanation: Halloween is becoming more and more popular in Europe, especially in the larger cities. It still is not hugely celebrated, but most of the students learn about it in their English classes.

Some of my students had made pretty neat crafts earlier in the week that they presented on my day with their class

Over here, they focus only on the scary side of Halloween & not on how creative it can be. If they dress up (like for a festival, there is not trick-or-treating here), it is only as a vampire, witch, ghost, spider, etc. My students (and some of the teachers) were surprised to hear that it is also very popular to wear costumes of princesses, celebrities, animals, movie characters, etc. 

Besides scary costumes, the other thing associated with the holiday is Michael Jackson's song "Thriller." I was in Sevilla on Halloween; while at The Festival of the Nations the song was played on repeat throughout the short Halloween performance that was incorporated into the festival. 

November 1st is a holiday here, not October 31st, and it's called All Saints Day. So, no school/work on Tuesday Nov. 1 means Monday Oct. 31 was a puente! (puente=bridge: when a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, they automatically turn it into a long weekend! Awesome concept, I wish America would follow suit!) This also made the 31st a popular night to go out with friends even though it was a Monday, regardless of whether the Spaniards were celebrating Halloween. A few bars had decorations and one offered a drink special, but otherwise it was just a normal night. There were more people in costumes than I expected, but most of them were study abroad students. 

My friends and I contemplated wearing our newly purchased Venetian masks

The Older Kids

Just finished up my third week at the secondary school. I am enjoying both schools, but what's funny is that the things I like about the IES (Instituto de Educación Secondaria) are completely different than the reasons I like the CEIP (Colegio de Educación Infantil y Primaria)! Here are my favorite things about the IES:

Random Photo #1 (I still wanted to add some pictures even though I do not have any at the school yet)- Mérida, Spain.
I walk past this spot on the way to work each day.

The younger grades (11-13 yrs old)- These classes are the most enthusiastic & willing to participate. They have large class sizes (close to 30 students, where as 14-18 year olds have about 15 students). Typically I prefer smaller classes, but in this situation it makes it easier to plan games and activities. Most of the students who are not as excited to participate in the younger grades just have an I-am-embarrassed-about-my-English attitude, but in the older grades the apathetic ones have an I-just-do-not-care attitude. I much prefer the first & these ones still get fairly excited about me helping them one-on-one. Middle school is the age I have had the least experience with back in the States, but I am liking this age group a lot more than I expected (at least in this setting).

Random Photo #2- Roman Art Museum, Mérida, Spain. We visited the museum
during one of our first weekends in Spain (entry is free on Saturdays & Sundays!)

Working with 4 different teachers- Originally I did not think this would be ideal & it did make the 1st week a bit confusing/difficult. However, I am now enjoying their different teaching styles (variety is the spice of life!). It's nice that I only have to plan activities for some of the classes; in others, the cooperating teacher just shows me the lesson plan the day of & lets me take over some activities. If I had to plan them all, it would get tiring, but if they were all the second option, I would get bored. Planning for these classes is a bit different than lesson planning back home because I only see each class once every 2 weeks. This makes it hard to build on what they know and what they are currently studying. The other teachers wanted it this way to give the students a "break" from the normal English class to keep the subject fun and exciting for the kids (and to give themselves a "break" by telling me "consider this your hour with the students...")

Random Photo #3- This is from the Auxiliar pot luck I mentioned a while back.

The teachers- They are so friendly and welcoming! And it is not only the English instructors. Basically anyone I end up beside in the teachers lounge or computer room will start up a conversation with me (one-on-one Spanish is so much more enjoyable than the rapid-fire 10 person discussions in the teachers lounge at the CEIP (though I do love the teachers there too)). The teachers have offered to help me with even the littlest things such as forgetting my umbrella or not knowing where I should go the first time my cooperating teacher was absent sick.

Random Photo #4- Lagos, Portugal. 

My schedule- In the last post I mentioned how good it was, right? Well guess what, it got better! My second week at the IES, the instructor I work with on Thursdays told me she thought they made my schedule in a rush & it would be better for me if I could have Thurs-Fri off in a row. So she switched three classes to Tues & the fourth to Mon. This does mean I start school at 8:30 am Mon-Wed, but I have the rest of the week to sleep in.

Random Photo #5- Venice, Italy. I got to go here for our first long weekend at the end of October!
It was so beautiful, I will share more from that trip soon!

Yesterday morning went especially well! First period was with the 16 year olds and I was able to get everyone to participate. The activities I did were not my favorite, but my main goal was to get everyone involved & now I have a better idea of how to plan for their class in the future. Second period was with a group of 11 year olds. I was pretty excited about the activity I had planned & the cooperating teacher thought it sounded good too. I had them working in groups of 4 which can be risky when you don't know the students, but it turned out to be a success & the teacher even said she planned to do it with some of her other sections. Score! The rest of the day went pretty well too, but it was really the morning that stuck out & got me more excited about working at the IES (: