We´d like to apologize for the delay on our next post. Apparently, school children carry many germs and make the teachers sick. We found that first hand and had quite the time figuring out Spanish healthcare and doctor´s offices. Nonetheless, we are back on our feet and feeling well.
October 29, 2010
Halloween in Spain
While Halloween is not a traditional celebration in Spain, it has been adopted in many places from the American culture. At our schools, the professors asked us to plan a day to celebration this tradition. The other assistants and I planned and decided to do activities that included a reading of an interactive poem called the The Small Ghostie, a scavenger hunt, mask painting, and a mummy wrapping game. The older kids enjoyed the scavenger hunt and following clues around the library. All of the kids thoroughly enjoyed the mummy wrapping game which consisted of over-excited kids wrapping their classmates in toilet paper. It was quite the hit with the kids. The teachers on the other hand were questioning their judgment on allowing us to put this on. One teacher kept coming in and saying the classroom didn’t look like Spanish or American classroom (because it was such a mess scattered with TP) but rather an ITALIAN classroom. Apparently the Spanish don’t hold the Italians in the best light…
Blake
October 29, 2010
Halloween in Spain
While Halloween is not a traditional celebration in Spain, it has been adopted in many places from the American culture. At our schools, the professors asked us to plan a day to celebration this tradition. The other assistants and I planned and decided to do activities that included a reading of an interactive poem called the The Small Ghostie, a scavenger hunt, mask painting, and a mummy wrapping game. The older kids enjoyed the scavenger hunt and following clues around the library. All of the kids thoroughly enjoyed the mummy wrapping game which consisted of over-excited kids wrapping their classmates in toilet paper. It was quite the hit with the kids. The teachers on the other hand were questioning their judgment on allowing us to put this on. One teacher kept coming in and saying the classroom didn’t look like Spanish or American classroom (because it was such a mess scattered with TP) but rather an ITALIAN classroom. Apparently the Spanish don’t hold the Italians in the best light…
Blake
At my school, where the kids call me Cat because the sounds in my name don’t exist in Spanish and they can’t even begin to try to say it, we had a bit of a different Halloween experience. There are two other English assistants at my school. One is from London and the other is from Omaha, Nebraska! Her dad is from Carroll so she knows just where I am from… small world. Anyway we were supposed to break up so two of us could tell stories to the older kids (2nd grade – 5th) and one of us to the young ones (age 3 – 1st year.) I decided to find something for them since I do not get to work with them usually, and I really like them better because even though they need a lot of attention, they are not quite as bratty as the older ones, which really makes me frustrated when I am teaching. I am getting off track… back to Halloween. I chose a story that was about an old lady who was not afraid of anything. I was given a stack of neon paper to make whatever I wanted for my set because there was a black light in the room that was completely dark besides it. Blake said he would come to my school and help since I had to go on Friday and he was done on Thursday. So I was the old lady and he stood behind the set and stuck things out that were trying to scare the old lady (scary shoes, wiggly pants, gloves, and a big pumpkin head) on her path home. At the end all of the things came to her door and she still wasn’t scared so they were sad. She had a great idea however, it was for them all to get together and make a scarecrow in her garden so they could scare the crows, and they were all happy in the end. Blake made a grat scarecrow and the kids loved it. We also did a little poem called the Small Ghostie and I made a ghost that really looked like it was flying around the room while we told it. Some kids started cyring then… but besides the scared ones, the oher had a lot of fun. I don’t think they understood A WORD because we did the whole thing in English, but they understood the visuals.
After we performed our set 5 times throughout the morning, we got dressed up in our costumes. I was a witch and Blake was Frankenstein. We watched all of the grade levels perform songs and dances (one was to Thriller…pretty cool) and we handed out treats. When it was finally time to go home we thought about washing the green off of our faces but we were tired and decided to ride home on the bus…then the train…then the metro, and walk back to our flat in our costumes. If I didn’t say this already, Halloween is NOT celebrated in Europe. Our kids just did it because we are in bilingual schools and it was a cultural activity. So, people were a little freaked out by us the whole way home.
Caitlin
After we performed our set 5 times throughout the morning, we got dressed up in our costumes. I was a witch and Blake was Frankenstein. We watched all of the grade levels perform songs and dances (one was to Thriller…pretty cool) and we handed out treats. When it was finally time to go home we thought about washing the green off of our faces but we were tired and decided to ride home on the bus…then the train…then the metro, and walk back to our flat in our costumes. If I didn’t say this already, Halloween is NOT celebrated in Europe. Our kids just did it because we are in bilingual schools and it was a cultural activity. So, people were a little freaked out by us the whole way home.
Caitlin
A Rainy Day in Segovia
October 31, 2010
After an entire month of scrimping and saving our money, we finally got paid and decided it was high time to take a short trip somewhere outside of Madrid. Upon reviewing our travel books, we decided that a day trip to the small, old Roman town of Segovia. If you are history buff on Spain, you might know Segovia for its centuries old Aqueduct or perhaps for its castle that has been said to be the inspiration for the Disneyland castle.
We started the day about 9:00 when we woke up and were not sure exactly what time it was because apparently there is a time change here. It was actually 8 which we found later, so that was a nice perk. We read online while we were at Starbucks the other day, that there was a high speed Ave train to Segovia that took only a half hour and cost just 10 Euro. We thought that was a great plan. We did not however remember where that train station was, and when we read about a train that left from the station close to us in our Madrid book, we thought it was that one. We got that station 3 minutes before the train left for Segovia (mind, there is only a train every 2 hours). We also did not have any tickets yet. I am not going to get into this too much but we ended up getting on without really getting tickets (Blake’s quick thinking), about 20 seconds before the doors of the train shut! We were luckily able to buy our tickets from the man that came by to make sure we had tickets…we thought we were going to get in big trouble for a little while. Anyway, an hour goes by and we start wondering why we are not there yet, and we noticed that we had now seen the city sky line 4 times, each time out of opposite windows. We then realized that we were definitely not on the high speed train, just one that zigzagged north up over the mountains for 2 hours and 15 minutes until we reached Segovia.
On the way the sun had peaked out a couple of times so we thought, maybe it would burn off the clouds and give us a nice day. But, no such luck. It was very cold, very rainy, and unusually windy. We were prepared though, with many layers looking very much like tourists since we don’t have our stylish coats and boots yet like all the Spaniards. I was wearing 2 pair of socks with my Keens and 4 layers under a fleece with a headband ear warmer and people were looking at me like I was the strangest thing around. I was warm though, and would have looked 100% normal back at home. People are very judgmental here about dress, and do not go out in public unless they look the way they think they should… if you have been to Spain, you know this I am sure.
Side note, I really do not understand the fashion here. People follow trends, but the quality of things is really bad. It is impossible to find anything that is halfway decent quality under 100 Euro. And, people always have to be wearing NEW things, things that are ALL the same color…seems like black and purple are the hot colors now. And the newest trend is jeans that look like you have a diaper on under them! They look absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop every teenager to wear them… and a few of those older women who try to look young and hip but look very foolish doing it in these hot pants. Note to those at Lee (I think this is one those fads that will be gone by Christmas!) There are really cool and interesting things here too, but it is only good news to you if you have a fat wallet.
Back to Segovia. When we arrived, we took a bus to the old part of town with the Aqueducts and the city surrounded giant walls. No one really knows when the aqueduct was built, but it is thought to date back to the 1st century AD. The structure is enormous and at one time brought water from the Rio Frio (Cold River) to the town. It does not function today but still stands in awesome condition. It was constructed only from giant blocks carved from the mountains. There is not a drop of mortar or cement holding is together! It is quite amazing to think about how it was built with all of those blocks in the arches just holding themselves together.
We walked up and over the city wall of the old town to check it out. The old building were incredible! The outside walls were completely adorned with stamped designs and the stones used to build the structures were a gold color. When we looked at the map of the town, it looked like it may take us all day to get around, but we soon found that it was very, very small. We got to the center in about 2 minutes, where the huge cathedral stands. We went inside to find ceilings that looked about 3 stories high. There are pinnacles and flying buttresses at every conceivable point with a great choir in the middle made from marble that was a mix of bright green, yellow, and red. All around the outside of the choir were about 12 inlets (each looked like its own museum) with gold treasures and huge statues in each one and beautifully carved and painted ceilings that were all different. We watched a choir from Bristol sing like angels while we were inside.
When we went back into the bitter cold to head to the Alcazar (castle), we pulled out some chorizo sandwiches that we made and ate them on the way. We were still hungry after those so we had our next sandwiches with chicken and ceasar, and decided to hold our sacred pb and jelly ones until the ride home (this is peanut butter that I brought to Spain, it is not sold here). When we got to the Alcazar, it was breathtaking. It was the first castle we had ever seen. It looked like it came straight from a fantasy land. We went inside and the rooms that date back to the 14th century were extraordinary. The walls, ceilings, and floors, have ornately decorated tiles, tapestries, and moldings, gold leafing, and murals, everywhere that you can possibly look. There are huge windows cut out with spectacular views of the entire city. We went down to see the cellars and then up 250 winding stairs to the tower.
While we were at the top of the tower we could see one of the famous churches of Segovia, Vera Cruz, that is a remarkable 12 sided building in the vally that faces the Alcazar. The church was built by the Knights Templar in the early 13th century on the pattern of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and once housed part of the supposed “true cross” hence its name.
After the Alcazar we headed back to the aqueducts and on the way we stopped in some cute shops. We didn’t have much money to spare but we did decide to buy a little pet owl. We named him Govi (after Segovia). We then went to a quaint little café to have a drink to warm up before we headed back though the mountains and countryside outside of Madrid.
After an entire month of scrimping and saving our money, we finally got paid and decided it was high time to take a short trip somewhere outside of Madrid. Upon reviewing our travel books, we decided that a day trip to the small, old Roman town of Segovia. If you are history buff on Spain, you might know Segovia for its centuries old Aqueduct or perhaps for its castle that has been said to be the inspiration for the Disneyland castle.
We started the day about 9:00 when we woke up and were not sure exactly what time it was because apparently there is a time change here. It was actually 8 which we found later, so that was a nice perk. We read online while we were at Starbucks the other day, that there was a high speed Ave train to Segovia that took only a half hour and cost just 10 Euro. We thought that was a great plan. We did not however remember where that train station was, and when we read about a train that left from the station close to us in our Madrid book, we thought it was that one. We got that station 3 minutes before the train left for Segovia (mind, there is only a train every 2 hours). We also did not have any tickets yet. I am not going to get into this too much but we ended up getting on without really getting tickets (Blake’s quick thinking), about 20 seconds before the doors of the train shut! We were luckily able to buy our tickets from the man that came by to make sure we had tickets…we thought we were going to get in big trouble for a little while. Anyway, an hour goes by and we start wondering why we are not there yet, and we noticed that we had now seen the city sky line 4 times, each time out of opposite windows. We then realized that we were definitely not on the high speed train, just one that zigzagged north up over the mountains for 2 hours and 15 minutes until we reached Segovia.
On the way the sun had peaked out a couple of times so we thought, maybe it would burn off the clouds and give us a nice day. But, no such luck. It was very cold, very rainy, and unusually windy. We were prepared though, with many layers looking very much like tourists since we don’t have our stylish coats and boots yet like all the Spaniards. I was wearing 2 pair of socks with my Keens and 4 layers under a fleece with a headband ear warmer and people were looking at me like I was the strangest thing around. I was warm though, and would have looked 100% normal back at home. People are very judgmental here about dress, and do not go out in public unless they look the way they think they should… if you have been to Spain, you know this I am sure.
Side note, I really do not understand the fashion here. People follow trends, but the quality of things is really bad. It is impossible to find anything that is halfway decent quality under 100 Euro. And, people always have to be wearing NEW things, things that are ALL the same color…seems like black and purple are the hot colors now. And the newest trend is jeans that look like you have a diaper on under them! They look absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop every teenager to wear them… and a few of those older women who try to look young and hip but look very foolish doing it in these hot pants. Note to those at Lee (I think this is one those fads that will be gone by Christmas!) There are really cool and interesting things here too, but it is only good news to you if you have a fat wallet.
Back to Segovia. When we arrived, we took a bus to the old part of town with the Aqueducts and the city surrounded giant walls. No one really knows when the aqueduct was built, but it is thought to date back to the 1st century AD. The structure is enormous and at one time brought water from the Rio Frio (Cold River) to the town. It does not function today but still stands in awesome condition. It was constructed only from giant blocks carved from the mountains. There is not a drop of mortar or cement holding is together! It is quite amazing to think about how it was built with all of those blocks in the arches just holding themselves together.
We walked up and over the city wall of the old town to check it out. The old building were incredible! The outside walls were completely adorned with stamped designs and the stones used to build the structures were a gold color. When we looked at the map of the town, it looked like it may take us all day to get around, but we soon found that it was very, very small. We got to the center in about 2 minutes, where the huge cathedral stands. We went inside to find ceilings that looked about 3 stories high. There are pinnacles and flying buttresses at every conceivable point with a great choir in the middle made from marble that was a mix of bright green, yellow, and red. All around the outside of the choir were about 12 inlets (each looked like its own museum) with gold treasures and huge statues in each one and beautifully carved and painted ceilings that were all different. We watched a choir from Bristol sing like angels while we were inside.
When we went back into the bitter cold to head to the Alcazar (castle), we pulled out some chorizo sandwiches that we made and ate them on the way. We were still hungry after those so we had our next sandwiches with chicken and ceasar, and decided to hold our sacred pb and jelly ones until the ride home (this is peanut butter that I brought to Spain, it is not sold here). When we got to the Alcazar, it was breathtaking. It was the first castle we had ever seen. It looked like it came straight from a fantasy land. We went inside and the rooms that date back to the 14th century were extraordinary. The walls, ceilings, and floors, have ornately decorated tiles, tapestries, and moldings, gold leafing, and murals, everywhere that you can possibly look. There are huge windows cut out with spectacular views of the entire city. We went down to see the cellars and then up 250 winding stairs to the tower.
While we were at the top of the tower we could see one of the famous churches of Segovia, Vera Cruz, that is a remarkable 12 sided building in the vally that faces the Alcazar. The church was built by the Knights Templar in the early 13th century on the pattern of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and once housed part of the supposed “true cross” hence its name.
After the Alcazar we headed back to the aqueducts and on the way we stopped in some cute shops. We didn’t have much money to spare but we did decide to buy a little pet owl. We named him Govi (after Segovia). We then went to a quaint little café to have a drink to warm up before we headed back though the mountains and countryside outside of Madrid.
A long train ride through the mountains...
The Alcazar
View from the tower
The Cathedral
The Aqueduct
The beautiful stamped walls
Our new pet Govi
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