castles for ants

Now that I’m beginning to develop a rhythm here in Malaga, I’m feeling more settled. I’m getting used to my school, getting to know my teachers and students, and have begun tutoring during the week for extra money. As of right now I tutor a 14-year-old girl, a 10-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother and an older (I haven't asked how old he is yet) tennis coach who wants to brush up on his English. They all seem eager to learn which is very encouraging and helps me to look forward to tutoring. School is going well, the students’ lack of discipline still amazes me but I’m getting accustomed to it. I learned last week that it’s illegal to send students out of the classroom, unlike at home where the threat of a trip to the principal’s office seems to solve a lot of problems, and since talking in class isn’t a big issue to their parents, it’s difficult to create a form of discipline. Also, in crazy news, last year there was a fight between a teacher and two students’ mothers after the teacher attempted to talk to them about their kids’ bad behavior. I mean a physical fight, apparently the moms hit her, which isn’t uncommon. I’m staying away from Spanish madres.

The kids I’m tutoring are lovely, they seem to know a decent amount of English but aren’t used to speaking so that’s what we need to work on. I’ve started making up exercises and worksheets that incorporate their interests so that tutoring is fun and not just “I went to the market today”. We have a good deal of common interests: football (soccer), Disney Channel, Gossip Girl, New York, Miley Cyrus and the movie 27 Dresses. Also: Bieber fever has reached Malaga in full force, I ended up doing some research on him (sad, but true) so I can make up some fun activities for Celia, who really likes him. I wrote an essay about him with blanks for her to fill in verbs and in the process I may or may not have watched some of his Youtube videos, just to make sure my information is accurate.

Aside from school and tutoring, a group of friends and I went to Fuengirola this past Sunday, another nearby city. We had a lazy lunch, wandered around the city, sat on the beach and had played around in a castle. One of the best things about Spain is the fact that you are allowed free reign of very old, very historic sites. We bought 3 euro tickets (worth every centimo) and were allowed to explore and run around the castle for as long as we pleased. The castle dates back to the 10^th century and is filled with towers, cannons and lookouts, as well as doors no higher than 3 feet. My friends said watching me crawl through the doors was one of the most entertaining things they’ve seen in a while. Sorry for having difficulty controlling my limbs. After tossing out a casual “Are you not entertained?!”, and missing my dear Logan, we ran around the castle like little kids for the next 40 minutes. There were fake sword fights, we all ended up with ridiculous accents and narrowly escaped bodily harm navigating the staircases. I’m trying to figure out the average person’s height from when the castle was built because at this point it’s a castle for ants. The four friends who didn’t come inside were probably tired of waiting, but I think they missed out.

I know, I'm so cool

Translations are my favorite

Bring it.

The bridge the dementors attacked and the castle

Fuengirola panorama - que chulo

Halloween is this weekend and although in Spain November 1, Dia de Todos Los Santos (All Saints’ Day), is the national holiday, kids still get into Halloween here. While at home we dress up as whatever we please in Spain the custom is to dress up like monsters or scary creatures. I hope the kids dress up for school tomorrow, little kids dressed as monsters will be adorable, or in some of their cases, freakishly accurate. I spent the past two days at school decorating the hallways by putting up cutout bats, ghosts and jack-o-lanterns, and the other auxiliary at my school put up scary spider webs so we’re set for a freaky Friday.

Seriously, how tall were these people?

Fuengirola

This was the tallest door in the castle

Castillo

Fuengirola

cumples and cuervas

This past Friday was my 23^rd birthday, so we decided to celebrate with a little fiesta. I was coerced into going out the night before by two bad influences (I’m looking at you, Gina and Erica), which turned out to be a really fun evening, and then spent the day on Friday recuperating and preparing for the nighttime festivities. And yes, I normally work on Fridays…

We decided to pay homage to my homeland by hosting a college themed party, which mainly consisted of beer pong and other traditional drinking games, as well as lots of random people and a disgusting mess the next morning. Very college, I think. I felt like I was back at Penn, waking up in the morning filled with fear of the destruction awaiting me outside my bedroom door. My friends got me a cake that had the candles “2111” on it, because finding a “3” candle proved to be very difficult. At first I was really confused and thought they didn’t know what year it was but applaud their creativity and ability to dodge another Spanish curveball. It was a pretty great party, it was very international, which is a change from my usual Philadelphia celebrations, and the neighbors didn’t complain! I was concerned that the wannabe Spanish Von Trapp family (they have really terrible family sing-a-longs) that lives across the hall would complain because there were a lot of people at my apartment but thankfully, we were in the clear. Although I missed my family and friends back home, I had a wonderful celebration with new friends. Twenty-three is off to a good start.

Pretty sign from my roommate

Ladies before the party

After a detour to Spanish Oktoberfest on Saturday night where I enjoyed every sip of my non-Spanish mug of beer, three friends and I got up early on Sunday morning to head off to Nerja, a nearby beach town. Now that we’re beginning to settle into Malaga, it’s time to begin exploring the surrounding areas. Nerja is absolutely stunning, it’s one of the prettiest beaches I’ve been to. There are beautiful cliffs, clear water and amazing views of the Mediterranean. Add that to the fact that it’s an hour-and-twenty-minute bus ride from my apartment and once again, my life is a joke. After grabbing some tapas we spent the afternoon on the beach enjoying the sun and basking in the ridiculousless that is our lives, and we even went in the frigid ocean water! I’d swum here before but two of my friends hadn’t, so we made a pact and sprinted into the ocean where we promptly lost all feeling in our bodies and developed goose bumps that lasted nearly an hour. But you have to swim in the Mediterranean if you’re there.

Once we regained feeling in our extremities we headed off to the Cuevas de Nerja (Nerja Caves) to do some light spelunking. There’s not actually any spelunking involved, sadly, but the caves are unbelievable. They date back to the Neolithic Period and are some of the most renowned caves in Europe. They’re also HUGE. At first you descend into a small cave, so I was originally questioning whether or not this was worth the eight euro fifty, but once you turn the corner and see the main attraction, every cent is immediately worth it. The large cave that you get to explore is massive; we walked up and down different sets of stairs in order to see it all. The walls are made up of areas that resemble drip sand castles, church organ pipes, and weird creepy things out of a scary movie or from Lost. I initially associate caves with Lost and the Man in Black, but this cave puts that one to shame. Our cab driver told us that the large tourist area of the cave is actually the smallest section, and there are two even larger caves closed to the public. There are also music and dance festivals down in the cave, something that I would love to see and am researching when they are on.

One of the best parts of visiting Nerja was getting to cross it off my list of Lugares a visitar (Places to visit) in my notebook this morning! Excuse the large number of pictures, the caves are so cool and it’s difficult to do them justice without visual aids.

Malaga at night

Nerja

Nerja panorama! Fancy.

Nerja

Nerja

Iglesia

Nerja

Cave! To put in perspective how big it is, the lights on the far side of the cave are on a staircase, and the little dots are people.

Sandcastles in the Sand

Descent into the cave

Cuerva

Really creepy ceiling

Adios, Nerja

just so spanish

Last week began my “real life” in Malaga and thus I began teaching. I use the phrase “real life” very loosely because my work schedule is this: 11:45-2 on Wednesdays and 9-2 on Thursdays and Fridays. And that’s it. This is just another addition to the “My life is a joke” list that I’m compiling. However, I was very excited to start teaching and woke up Wednesday morning in time to make breakfast and go to the market (because everything closes from 2 to 5 for siesta) before heading off to school on the very hot and overwhelming Spanish city bus.

I’m teaching at a primary school about 3 miles from my apartment in a quiet, more residential section of Malaga called El Huelin. CEIP Eduardo Ocón, my school, resembles a fortress. The school itself has locked steel doors on the buildings, a dirt cement play area in front and in back, 12-foot high walls surrounding the property and 15-foot high green steel gates enclosing everything. You have to be James Bond to cut class in this country, I could barely figure out how to get inside on my first day. School starts at 9, and the gates open at 8:59 precisely, so in the morning there are about 200 children and their parents standing on the street waiting for the gates to open. Once they do it's a mad dash inside resembling women racing into a sample sale. I've developed the habit of getting a coffee across the street until the herding has ceased.

My school. I'm not sure why the name is in quotation marks...very Spanish.

Everything about the school is just so Spanish. You may not understand what I mean by that unless you’ve spent some time in Spain, so here is an example: I arrived on Wednesday morning ready to teach cute little Spanish children, got to my first class and the classroom was empty. I saw the teacher when I first arrived so I knew she had been at school that day, but the entire classroom was vacant. I figured that Maria Jose, their teacher, had given them an extra long recess (from 11:45-12:15 everyday) and that they would return soon. Five minutes later, still no class. Ten minutes, nothing. I found the coordinator of my bilingual program who informed me that the teacher had to go to the doctor and thus we began to search for the 25 missing first graders. We never found them. The secretary told us she thought they were out front with another teacher, and that was satisfactory enough for my coordinator who sent me to another class without ever verifying the whereabouts of the missing children…

The entire episode still makes my head spin a bit but I’m working on rolling with the Spanish punches so I moved on with my day. Thankfully I did see all the lost children collecting their bags at the end of the day so no Amber Alerts need to be sent out.

The bilingual program dictates that 1/3 of all classes be taught in English in every subject. I’ll be teaching English, Science, Math and Art. I am well versed in one of those four so this should be pretty interesting. Thankfully I know enough about elementary science to tell the difference between a leaf and a tree, even if I don’t understand all my students’ questions. I take groups of 5 or 6 children from each class to the bilingual classroom where we review vocabulary, basic phrases, and they ask me questions like, “Why did you come here on a plane?”. I’ve discovered the key to their heart is boys v. girls vocab games. Their intensity is adorable; you’d think they were playing in a World Cup match. One boy makes the sign of the cross before each turn and a team of girls is already preparing for their rematch against the boys next week. Other than vocabulary races my first couple days of school consisted of my jumping around the classroom and acting out various words, they loved my interpretation of “windy”, I think my long limbs really encapsulate branches uncontrollably whipping around. One class sings Beatles songs as a way to learn new vocabulary but is convinced that there are only two Beatles songs, Hello, Goodbye and I Want to Hold Your Hand, the only two that they’ve learned so far. I tried to sing Hey Jude to them when they asked my mom’s name but they responded by singing Hello, Goodbye at me in response to whatever I said. Baby steps. I’m already getting more comfortable at school and brainstorming different topics that I can act out for the kids this week.

School from the street. Inviting, isn't it?

Kids check in. They don't check out.

The fortress.

My classroom

Two of my friends had a housewarming party this weekend, which was a lot of fun. We recuperated on Sunday by lying on the beach with some snacks, I even went in the frigid water (Myth #1 about Malaga is that the ocean water is warm, I lost feeling in my legs after 30 seconds), and then went on an excursion in search of pizza. About 95% of Malaga is closed on Sunday so finding something to eat is a bit of a challenge. In the end, however, we discovered a new pizza place that has pepperoni (!!) so it was a successful outing.

Now that everyone is settling into their work schedules we’re beginning to plan some trips, I have a list of about 30 places where I’d like to go but am working on prioritizing, though it’s proving to be very difficult.

More updates soon!

Cloudy day in Malaga

Jardines

major steps

Great news: I have internet in my apartment. It came on Friday so this weekend was full of catching up on American tv shows during siesta time. On Saturday my friends and I went to Carrefour, this massive store that is like Target, Walmart and Costco's love child where we found hot sauce, ranch dressing and peanut butter. Needless to say this weekend was monumental.

I'll update more once I start teaching on Wednesday, so until then here are some snapshots from around the city...

La Catedral de Málaga

The view from my apartment balcony (Plaza de la Merced)

My bedroom...yes, Babar came with me. He's French so Europe suits him.

Panoramic view from my apartment

My street, the bar in the front is called WeekEND Bar has statues of Elvis and the Blues Brothers so I feel right at home.

Beach down the street from school

My walk home from school

Alcazaba

Gaudi house