When Friends Come to Visit, Thanksgiving

Rachael is here! We've known each other since middle school from the Unitarian Universalist Youth Group and now we are here in Spain together. She arrived on Thanksgiving night and although Andy and I missed her at the airport, we all ended up back together to celebrate a Thanksgiving dinner at the American Diner here in town. I had a salad and Rach had a club sandwich while everyone else ate turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumkpin pie. It was a noisy and fun dinner.

But, yesterday we made our own family-style dinner and it was absolutely fabulous. The kitchen got crazy with six people moving in and out but we took turns talking to our family's on skype while peeling potatoes and chopping onions. We wanted to make a Thanksgiving meal for ourselves so we cooked garlic-cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, corn, turkey, gravy and pear crumble. It was a great success and we gorged ourselves properly in between many glasses of wine. By the end of dinner, we were so comatose that Rach and I ended up laying down and talking about all of our different experiences of working with kids, interacting with roommates, speaking in Spanish and the future travels we want to go on together. It lifted my spirits tremendously to talk with such a great friend who is having such a similar experience as I am. And we fell asleep on the single mattress together. It was lovely.

Today we slept in and then watched a pirated version of Quantum of Solace because the weather was totally wretched. The windows shook with rain and wind and the sky was a nasty shade of dark grey until afternoon but we just cuddled up on the couch and enjoyed taking it easy. Then we walked down the block to a bar with crepes and gorged ourselves again with yummy crepes and we just got back from walking down to the cathedral. The cathedral dates from the 14th century although it took 400 years to build. The complexity of the building is hard to comprehend when you stand at the base but we wandered around to the entrance and managed to get in a walk around for a half an hour until services started. The height of the ceiling alone was astonishing. We stayed for a bit of the service and it was nice for me to discover that I understood a bit of what the priest was saying. Now we are back at home eating some tasty leftovers and gearing up for a fun night out on the town tonight.

Fornalutx

Another Trip to Sóller and a Week of Fun

This past week was a whirlwind of activity including a lot of bonding with my students and making a great new friend in the form of the mother of two of my students. Jill, from Manchester, moved to Palma at the end of August and her kids attend Joan Miró where I met her because she volunteers in their classes. Jill is a kick in the pants and a great lady to chat with. We hung out on Friday and she helped me (finally) get my bus pass as a resident of Palma. Of course that whole process was a shenanagin involving a lot of me smiling while being totally confused and the Palma people repeating themselves over and over again until I kinda understood what the heck they were trying to tell me. After that adventure, both of us rode the bus out to the University of the Balearic Islands where we hung signs offering tutoring sessions. I even colored my signs with some University of Oregon green and yellow just for good luck. I am hoping that something will come of the adverts although the economy here is really suffering. Unemployment is close to a 20 year high at 14% so many people are hesistant to part with their hard earned euros in exchange for English lessons. But the one tutoring session I am still conducting is going great. For 18 euros a week, I work with Maria Angeles, a teacher at Miquel Porcel, to help her prepare for her test to become an English teacher for one hour and for another half an hour I read to her very shy and silly son Marcos. This past session, Maria Angeles told me that if I ever need anything, to just call her up and she'll come and give me a ride wherever I need to go and I thought that was a very sweet thing to say. I also attended a couch surfing dinner on Wednesday where I met a bunch of great people who live in Palma and I met a girl named Isabel who might be interested in a language exchange so that is certainly something to get excited about. I desperately need to practice speaking spanish.

This past week I also booked tickets for Andy and I to fly to London and then Dublin on the 26th of December. We'll go and visit our friend Eric who is living and working in Dublin and make our way back toward London after New Years to hang out with my friend Ashley until we return on the 5th of January. I think that trip will be a great change of pace from day-to-day life here in Palma and we'll actually be able to drink some good beer because the cervezas here are pretty bad.

This weekend we returned to Sóller to find fantastic weather, a cheery market and a fabulous hike awaiting us. We hiked from Sóller to a small town in the mountains called Fornalutx and on the way we passed olive and orange grove terraces and plenty of happy-making views. Although I've been fighting a cold, our trip to Sóller was a restoration of my spirits. I feel so lucky to be in such a beautiful place and I am really glad to be meeting more people and making more connections here because that is what makes me feel like I belong.

Joan Miró

Figur Gegen Rote Sonne II by Joan Miró

Today, I walked to school in the rain zipped into my brown rain jacket and when I arrived, I was informed that my teacher was sick. Instead of turning right back around and walking home, I hung around a bit. Luckily two of the classes were heading out on an excursion to the Joan Miró museum so I just tagged along. And it was awesome. Joan Miró was an surrealist artist who created stunning paintings, sculptures and ceramic pieces before his death in 1983 here in Palma. The museum was split into two sections, one being his original studio filled with his art and another being a traditional gallery with a wide range of his art. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't understand a word the tour guide was saying because she spoke in Catalan but I just observed and helped the kids. They painted replicas of four of Joan's paintings so they really got a kick out of walking through the museum and looking for the paintings they imitated. And, Joan Miró is the namesake for our school so it seemed appropriate to explore his art. Our tour guide showed us great photos of Joan Miró using out of the ordinary painting techniques using a broom, his feet and a water can. I also enjoyed his use of different materials including sandpaper and bronze. Managing the children in the museum was enough to make me crazy but I still found time to appreciate the paintings and sculptures around me.



Today is also Inca's (the second largest city on Mallorca) big market day so Joseph, Nikki and I are going to set out shortly to scope out some Mallorquin crafts and goodies so I'm pretty excited about that.


I've been a little homesick lately but I'm trying to fill out my days more so I have a bit less down time. Working only 12 hours a week has left me with a lot of time but I think that is both a good and a bad thing. Bad because sometimes I get bored but good because I am using the time to think a lot about where I want to go from here and what I want out of my life in the future. I'm definitely thinking a lot about the possibility of graduate school and I also think that living abroad is a fabulous experience but I will want to return to Oregon and home afterwards. So, lots of thinking still to do, but I have plenty of time.

Soller: I love you.

The views from our hike around Soller on the other side of the island were awesome! I can not wait to go back.

Mummia! Una Mummia!

I was a mummy for Halloween. Wrapped in a two-punch of toilet paper and paper towels. And I hid in a closet from 9:30 am until 2 pm scaring students at Joan Miro and shuffling around the English classroom with my head tilted and my arms straight in front of me. The idea was a good one. Lauren, the full-time English teacher, decorated the class until it was completely dark and hung the kids' giant spiders made from trash bags from the ceiling. She even had a mosquito net set up in the back corner of the classroom draped in orange and black streamers as her witch tent. But somehow by the end of the day, the streamers lay on a desk, totally disassembled from their previous state; a majority of the spiders were missing their legs; cobweb stuff covered nearly every surface; the apple bobbing station was dripping water onto the floor; the "jello feels like brains" station dyed Lauren's desk pink and the pin the tail on the black cat game was missing the tail. Lauren, Jill and I surveyed the damage as the last group of kids sat in a circle on the floor and scared each other with Halloween tales. Lauren said decisively, "I am so glad that Halloween is on a Saturday next year, because I am damn well NOT doing this again."

For the students, the Halloween spooky classroom probably was a success. Close to the entire school passed through our door and the screams combined together were enough for me to stay hidden in my closet space. For all of us running the show, the experience was the beginning of a meltdown. I recall a particular moment during the break while sitting downstairs with the rest of the teachers. And, you should know, none of them were dressed up. I was still wrapped in my mummy wear although it was falling apart because of the many hands that had grabbed at it. One of the classes decided that it was a brilliant idea to use me as a jello wiper and by the break I was splattered with pink goop. And then one of the teachers walked in, stopped in her tracks and just laughed at me. Laughed and laughed. And then she left. And of course my Spanish isn't good enough yet to understand conversations, so I just sat in the room picking at my toilet paper and watching the activity around me until it was time to head upstairs and resume my position in the corner. And I did. And the children kept coming and screaming and losing all control of themselves as the raged through the class leaving pieces of paper, costumes, blood? and craziness behind them. It was a day to be remembered for sure. And then I drank and stayed out until 4 am in my own celebration of the Halloween holiday.

And on a more serious note, I've organized my first tutoring session with one of the teachers at my school so now I am tutoring her four year old son and her for an hour and a half every Wednesday. I charge 12 euros an hour. That is all for now.