Me, pre-tomato madness:

“Ole, ole ole ole!”

Most of the locals covered their balconies in plastic, and enjoyed a great view of the festival from up above. Other locals tossed buckets of water down on the crowd from the rooftops, or sprayed people with water from the hose.

There were also plenty of costumes and “teams” with themes! I tried to capture the gladiator group with this shot, but I also seem to have gotten volleyball-helmet guy in here.

Tons of people.

Here come the trucks of tomatoes!

Josh and I, post-tomato madness:

There you have it: short, but sweet! If you want to know more about the Tomatina festival, a quick search on Google.com will give you lots of helpful sites (and exciting pictures). It was a great time!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken a few trips, entertained visitors, and met up with Spanish friends while continually trying to be more a part of Spanish culture here. I’ll briefly try to describe most of these in this post, and then add a few different posts afterwards with Tomatina photos and reflections on teaching and life!

To start, there was a fun excursion I took at the beginning of October: VALENCIA!!! My friend Lisa, one of the Fulbrighters in Madrid, had organized for a few of us to meet up in Valencia for the long holiday weekend. We booked spots in a 10-bed, dorm-style room at the Purple Nest Hostel—which I’d highly recommend, if anyone was curious! – and enjoyed the beach, the discotecas, and the big celebration and parades in town for the 9^th of October, a day in which the Valencians celebrate the Christian victory over the Moors. It was also the 100^th anniversary of Valencia becoming an important city in Spain. Of course I’ll upload a few photos for you people 

PHOTOS FROM VALENCIA WEEKEND:

The Christian-Moors parade had really elaborate costumes… I loved it!!

View of the parade starting point from our hostel room balcony:

La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias, Valencia: the largest cultural-educational complex in Europe. Really cool architectural design, too.

Our crew at the beach in Valencia, enjoying the sun all afternoon and then out for paella at a seaside restaurant:

Market, Sunday morning at the Plaza de Toros in Valencia:

A few weekends ago, my friend Lulio (another Fulbright ETA who works at a secondary school in Madrid) came to visit Dani and I here in Alicante. We had a great time trying new restaurants, enjoying the beach, and cooking good food!

The next weekend, my parents came to visit. I can’t express how comforting it is to have a piece of home, finally, here in the town I live in!! They flew into Madrid on a Friday, so I caught a train into Madrid to meet them. I ended up going on Thursday night so I could see some of the other Fulbrighters in Madrid that I rarely see, which was a great time—we all met up at a bar and caught up, and then a few of us stayed up chatting for awhile back at my friend Lisa’s apartment by Gran Vía.

Once Mom & Dad got into town, they caught up a little from jetlag, and then we hit the town. We found a sector up near Calle Serrano that had a ton of antiques—Mom loved this, of course!—and browsed for awhile, later heading over to the Palacio Real to see the palace and the gardens. We ate out and enjoyed some tinto verano near the Parque del Retiro, and then walked through the park and sat near the Estanque talking all evening. Needless to say, it was wonderful.

PHOTOS from Mom & Dad’s trip to Madrid:

Plaza de la Independencia near the Retiro:

Mom & I near the Banco de España:

Palacio Real:

Once we got into Alicante on Sunday, my parents checked into a hotel just down the street from my apartment. While I worked most of the week, they got to enjoy some sightseeing and the Costa Blanca beach as well as some good company: Mona’s friend Florian was also in town visiting, so we all went out for dinner in the city one night. After discussing typical German foods one night, Mona and Flo also decided to cook their German favorite for us: kässpätzle, or cheese spätzle. DELICIOUS! And so much fun to watch them make! (Here’s a video to show you… Basically they have a simple dough mixture on a cutting board, and they slide it off bit by bit with a knife.)

PHOTOS from Mom & Dad’s trip to Alicante:

Views from the Castillo de Santa Barbara that Dad took:

View of the Castillo de Santa Barbara from a restaurant on the harbor:

My neighborhood (Benalua) market, open every Thursday & Saturday morning just down the block from my apartment:

Alicante train station:

Anyways, back to now. On the weekends where I’m not traveling or entertaining, I’ve been trying to meet with intercambios, or language exchange partners; basically, other Spanish people who are willing to help me practice Spanish if I help them practice their English. I met with two girls on Friday night for drinks, and it turned out that they barely knew much English at all—one of them knew “hello” and “beer” and that was about it. But I didn’t mind, since I got to practice a LOT more Spanish!

The same night, I went out with my friend Nerea, who’s also my co-worker and music teacher at my school. A director from Alicante was introducing his movie, “Estigmas,” at a premiere at a theater in town, so Nerea invited me out for dinner and the movie with her friends. It was kind of crazy: while we were in line in the restroom at the theater, another girl passed us, and we later realized she was the main actress in the movie!

Despite how I’m craving more travels to other European cities, or even cities in Spain (Galicia, Santander, Pamplona, Granada… the list goes on!), I also love sticking around the Comunitat Valenciana where I live. This upcoming Thursday, I’m going to a pueblo about an hour north of Alicante called Torremanzanas. Mona spends most of her weekends there, taking care of horses at a ranch owned by her German friend Dagmar, and giving riding lessons to Swiss friends of Dagmar’s. I’m really excited to see the little town—Mona says we’ll go to the town market on Sunday morning, sure to be tiny compared to what I’ve experienced in Segovia and Alicante!—and go horseback riding out in the fields. I’ll be sure to take plenty of photos! Speaking of photos… hang on, there’s tons to come after this post, I assure you!

Much love,

Meg

Though last Tuesday was supposed to be my official first day—and I even double-checked with the principal that Tuesday would be a good day to start—I arrived and discovered that they weren’t exactly ready for me. The principal greeted me, introduced me to any teacher or aide or oblivious young student that passed us in the hallway, and then basically said, “Well, I guess we don’t really have a schedule for you yet. How about you go back home and come back tomorrow?”  My first day lasted about 30 minutes. Welcome to Spain, where flexibility is your best friend!

Since last Wednesday, I’ve been getting used to my schedule at the school. In September and June the students have class all month, but they only have half-days, starting at 9am and ending at 1pm. In a week, the schedule will change over to the normal daily routine of 9am until 5pm. (And don’t forget that in Spain everyone takes a midday siesta—the kids all go home for lunch at 1:30pm and return for afternoon classes at 3:30pm.) I only work Monday through Thursday, as per the usual for the Fulbright ETAs. Not a bad gig.

ON THE SUNNY SIDE

+ I absolutely love the kids. Absolutely love them. There’s something about the lack of inhibitions that makes them so fascinating to teach, since they’re not afraid to try pronouncing words or using them. I taught one of my classes of 5-year-olds the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and later in the hallway, one of my kids saw me and shouted “Meg! Meg!” until I turned around, and he proudly started singing the song complete with the movements.

+ Most of the other teachers at the school are very sweet and patient with my Spanish. One of the younger teachers invited me to dinner and a concert this weekend with some of her friends, and another invited me over to her house so she can teach me how to cook Mediterranean-style paella and seafood, after we had a conversation about my lack of Spanish cooking skills here.

ON THE NOT-SO-SUNNY SIDE

–Lack of normal schedule/expectations. In my 5^th and 6^th grade classes, I usually observe the class and later on I’ll make supplemental activities or games to do with the classes. However, when I first walked into my infantil classes of 4- and 5-year-olds, the teachers told their classes, “This is Meg; she’s our new English teacher. Now she’s going to teach you English, so pay attention,” and I had about 4 seconds to come up with something to do for the next hour.

–Language barrier. It’s hard enough getting to know your coworkers and forming good relationships, but not knowing the language makes it quite tough. I try to be receptive and eager to chat when I’m in the teacher’s lounge during break, but I also don’t want to force it, so it’s an interesting balance.

ON THE AMUSING SIDE

Most teachers have introduced me to their classes as “Mek, la inglesa”—which translates to “Meg, the British girl.”  When this is followed by a brief pause, or a look for affirmation, I usually quietly say, “la americana” with a forgiving smile. But in my class the other day, the teacher introduced me as “la inglesa” and continued talking for awhile, then looked at me and said, “Eres de Londres, verdad?” (You’re from London, right?). Sigh. On the plus side, I might be able to get away with experimenting with a British accent without anyone noticing.

My roommates are both studying at the Universitat d’Alacant. Anna (“Ani”) is a 24-year-old graduate student from Bulgaria; this is her second year living in this flat in Alicante, and her second year in the graduate program for Economics at the university, which is ranked 4th in the country for her field. Ramona (“Mona”) is a 25-year-old student from Germany doing Erasmus, a study-abroad program without affiliation for students from the European Union. They’re both very sweet and I’ve been learning more in the cultural exchange of living with these two – which is a bit different than the cultural exchange I was expecting, living in Spain! It’s been great learning more about life in Bulgaria and Germany, though, as well as their impressions of living in Spain.

Here are a few photos of our flat in Alicante.

It’s been interesting trying to re-adapt to Spanish life. For one thing, during my first trip to Spain, I noticed differences – the food is different, they eat dinner on a different schedule, they do laundry differently – but it’s quite a new experience to have to actively participate in these things.

New experience #1: Grocery shopping. We’re lucky enough to have a Mercadona supermarket just down the street from our building, and I made my first trip there this weekend with Mona. But the normal brands, salad dressings, meat marinades – I’m clueless when it comes to grocery shopping here! I recognize a few things Ana used to buy, like breakfast and sandwich meat, but I’m going to have to explore and experiment quite a bit.

The other highlight of grocery shopping was that, while browsing different aisles in Mercadona, I suddenly found myself in the ‘seafood’ section – with everything fresh from the sea! Obviously no one else was as fascinated and excited about having fresh seafood at the corner market, but who wouldn’t go wide-eyed upon finding an octopus in a plastic vat? My one-year cooking goal is to buy one of those beauties and attempt to cook it. (It’s a hefty goal, I know.) I’m 100% positive that this experience will be documented in my blog, don’t you worry.

New experience #2: Doing laundry without a dryer. During my college years, most of my experiences with laundry consisted of realizing I needed nice clothes for a presentation the next day, followed by frantically tossing clothes in the washer, popping them in the dryer, and folding them – all within a span of 2-3 hours. This would be a considerably larger problem in Spain, where nearly no one has a dryer, and whether or not your clothes dry quickly is determined by the weather. I tried to do laundry yesterday, but Alicante seems to be under siege – we’ve had two days of inexplicable torrential rain. (“Not normal,” Ani tells me.)

Fortunately the rain let up long enough for me to dry a load of clothes on the line outside our window… and after drying, it’s absolutely essential that you iron everything – and I mean EVERYTHING. My host mom used to spend her Sunday afternoons standing over the ironing board, watching the moto races on TV, and I was always shocked to see her ironing everything from jeans to underwear. She said it made them ‘softer,’ which I understood – if you’ve ever line-dried clothes, you know they get a wonderful crunchy feel to them. My Fulbright handbook helpfully explains that you also need to iron line-dried clothing because flies sometimes lay eggs on clothes, and ironing kills them off before they could hatch and burrow into your skin. Lovely thought!

Needless to say, I’ll be ironing all of my clothes – even my underwear.

Okay, well, first of all: I had an absolutely incredible time at Orientation. I met so many fantastic people – both other teaching assistants as well as a few of the graduate researchers, the program administrators for Spain, and even people at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. We had sessions lead by former grantees and bilingual program coordinators from Madrid schools who gave us an idea of what our typical days might be like; we had briefings from the U.S. Embassy on security issues as well as assistance abroad; best of all, we had lots of breaks and free time to get to know one another, going out for coffee or drinks or tapas nearly every day. I’m definitely falling back into the Spanish lifestyle already! Here are a few photos from the myriad social events from the past week.

The first day of Orientation after check-in, a few of us Fulbright ETAs decided to go explore the Parque del Retiro in Madrid, and for the first time, I joined a few friends in renting a rowboat to paddle around the Estanque! It was actually quite cheaper than I’d thought, and a lot of fun:

Afterwards we went out in Madrid for sangria and good conversation:

At the end of Orientation, we had the Fulbright reception in the garden of the Instituto Internacional. Quite the posh event – waiters came around with appetizers, wine and champagne; I even tried caviar for the first time! I also got to mingle with some of the graduate researchers (met a guy named Zane who’s studying Spanish guitar in Alicante), and chatted with Janet Sabo – the Regional Security Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid – about job opportunities at the embassy.

It was a really fantastic week of meeting people and hearing their stories, learning a lot, and getting more and more excited to be here with the Fulbright program. The one downer of the week was that I had been looking around for Audrey (the other girl who was supposed to be an ETA in Alicante with me, and who I’d been emailing back and forth to even try to find housing together), and I couldn’t find her.

After a few emails and talking to the program director, I found out she had a family emergency back home, and she won’t be coming… which means that I’m now the only Teaching Assistant in Alicante. I feel badly for her, and I hope things work out; on the other hand, I think it’ll be a really good experience for me to have to meet people and start ‘from scratch’ in a new city & new country.

And now for some REALLY good news!!!

During Orientation, I did some apartment-searching online and contacted a few people. I heard back from several, including one girl whose apartment is perfectly situated between the heart of the city and my work; since I was really interested, I asked if we could arrange for me to see the place.

So, today, I went over there and got a tour of the apartment, and sat down with the two girls who live there now – Anna and Ramona – for coffee and cookies and chatting. Well, after over an hour and a half, I told them that I was honestly very interested in renting out the room. They said they had another girl coming to look at the place, but that they really enjoyed having me, and they’d let me know within a day. Less than 2 hours later, Anna called me to say they want me! I’m officially living in Alicante – and I can see the Mediterranean from our terrace!!!

I’ll upload photos and more info later, but as for now, I’m staying at this hotel (which I really recommend, by the way: Hotel San Remo in Alicante, very close to La Rambla and the beach) for one more night. And then I move into my new apartment tomorrow morning!! Wish me luck

This past week, I enjoyed a lot of explorations of Alicante, getting a better sense of what the city is like. Standing out at the end of the pier is absolutely breathtaking, offering a view of the city from afar with the Castillo de Santa Bárbara in the background. I also saw a lot of sea life in the Mediterranean – pools of fish, coral, and I’m pretty sure I even saw some jellyfish!

Among other [small but still pride-worthy] accomplishments this week, I

• went to the Generalitat Valenciana government building to get my carnet jove, the student card which gets me a lot of discounts – including a healthy discount on Renfe train tickets (hooray!)
• used my carnet jove to go to the public transportation info center and buy a Móbilis bono jove, a 30-ride bus card for urban Alicante so I can finally start learning how to use public transportation! My feet will be thanking me.
• discovered an institute for international languages, and stopped to inquire about language classes in castellano and catalán**. It turns out that they only offer classes in castellano, but she pulled out a map to show me where I could go to find classes in catalán, which I’m eager to pursue.

I also got to see a lot of friends this week, both old and new. The first time I came to Spain in 2007 with a Concordia group, my good friend Catie was with me and we spent a lot of time together in both Spain and Italy. This fall, Catie’s little sister Beth (a junior at Concordia) is studying in Alicante! Kind of ironic that both of my trips to Spain have included a member of their family, but I’m not complaining. I got to meet up with Beth for ice cream on Friday, and also met two of her friends in her program.

Last night I went out for dinner and drinks with a bunch of the Fulbrighters I’ve been meeting online over the past few months. Kind of an odd experience meeting people in-person who you’ve only ever talked to online; I probably won’t be making a habit of it, but I think this counts as a unique circumstance… and with how nervous-excited I’ve been, it was relieving to get feedback to help me cope with the ambiguity in program contents, expectations, etc.  I met 6 of them to go out for dinner (paella and tapas), then we went back to the Residencia Augustinus-Nebrija where they’re all staying this weekend, and where I’ll also be staying during Orientation. After meeting two more Fulbrighters back at the Residencia, we all went out for a few copas (drinks) at a little bar nearby and stayed out chatting until 2:00am on the outdoor patio. Most of them have been searching for apartments, and even have appointments today to go look at more; I’ll be kicking my apartment-searching into high gear once I get back to Alicante.

Today I went wandering around the neighborhood looking for hand-washing laundry detergent, and I stumbled upon a huge outdoor market of antiques. (My mother would’ve thought she’d died and gone to heaven!) Some of it was absolute junk, but I found some old periodicals that were published during the Spanish Civil War. So cool!!

Anyways, I hope all is well in the Midwest! I’ll be heading back to Alicante on Thursday night, but I’ll write later this week to tell you about Orientation.

–Meg

**Castellano, or Castillian, is the term for the Spanish that’s widely spoken in the U.S. and most parts of Spain – it’s the Spanish that I know and speak. Catalán, also known as Valencià, is another romance language that’s the co-official language of the Comunitat Valenciana and is the third language at the “innovative trilingual school” where I’ll be teaching. It’s quite different from Spanish – in fact, it’s also spoken in Andorra, the Roussillon region in southern France, and the Italian island of Sardinia. I know absolutely nothing in catalán… so I’m hoping to take some classes and start learning it.

◊ ◊ ◊

The marina, during my first evening in the city:

The Explanada de España:

Hibiscus flowers that cover the city:

Me by the marina, with the Castillo de Santa Bárbara in the background:

MONDAY-TUESDAY: The travels here were quite exhausting with delays at security, a Madrid metro line being closed, almost missing the high-speed train to Valencia, and wandering around trying to find our hotel at 12:30am in Valencia.

WEDNESDAY: Josh and I got up at 6:00am to go to the Tomatina Festival in Buñol – a city 40 minutes outside of Valencia – and got to experience the famous annual tomato fight. Huge dump trucks filled with tomatoes drive through the crowds of people, throwing the tomatoes and tossing more over the side for the people closest to the truck, and after a few minutes the streets (and all the people) are covered in tomato. It was a great time – until Josh realized his passport, credit card and all his cash had gone missing. So the rest of the day was spent finding the Guardia Civil to fill out a police report, taking the train back to Valencia, getting our hotel for another night (and cancelling the one in Alicante), looking up information for the U.S. Embassy and getting a hotel in Madrid.

THURSDAY: We got up early again to catch the earliest train to Madrid so we could go straight to the U.S. Embassy. Thankfully, Josh was able to get an emergency passport, and once he got to the U.K. he would be able to apply for his real passport and get another visa. After feeling much better about that situation, we checked into our hotel (which was fabulous!), and to celebrate finally having some things in order we got Telepizza for dinner – my favorite fast-food/pizza in Spain

FRIDAY: On our first day we had the option of sleeping in, we definitely took advantage of it: I slept in the entire morning. In the afternoon we visited the Reina Sofia museum to see some Picasso, Dalí, Miró, and many others, and walked through the Parque del Retiro. Josh got to try sangria and paella for the first time, and I had a delicious bowl of gazpacho (although I couldn’t help but think of the Tomatina, with the tomato-y taste!).

SATURDAY: Awhile after waking up, I decided to go exploring in Madrid, visiting shops and buying a train ticket to Valencia and Alicante for Sunday. I had lunch sitting outside a café, finally having time to enjoy Madrid and take it all in! In the evening, Josh and I took advantage of the free hours at the Museo el Prado and absolutely loved it: tons of paintings by Goya, Reubens, Rafael, and more. We walked to the Plaza del Sol and for dinner we got to enjoy croquetas, jamón ibérico, and – of course – sangria!

SUNDAY: At the lovely hour of 6:00am, I woke up and got ready to take the metro to the train station, and said goodbye to Josh (who was leaving for London in the afternoon). From there, I left for Valencia, where I got to meet Kelly – a fellow Spain Fulbrighter – for lunch. We sat outside at a café near the train station, mostly sweltering in the heat (it’s been around 85-95 degrees every day I’ve been here), but it was really nice to be able to talk about our experiences and expectations for the program with another Fulbrighter. In the afternoon, I took the train to ALICANTE – my first experience in the city I’ll be living in for the next 10 months! I checked into my hotel and then went exploring, discovering that Alicante feels an awful lot like Hawaii; there are even a ton of hibiscus flowers all over the city!

MONDAY: I got up today and decided to go looking for a cheap pension for the rest of the week, since I got my current hotel for its proximity to the train station (I’m lugging around 2 large bags, my backpack and purse) and its security/comfort – both very important to me right now, on my first time traveling alone. After marking a few places on the map, I left for the day. At the very first pension I stopped to visit, I met a nice old man named Ángel who offered to show me the rooms and even gave me a discount for the rest of the week. From there, I stopped to browse cell phones in a store called Orange, and then decided to go try to find the school where I’ll be teaching. From my first glance at the map, it didn’t look terribly far… but after walking for an hour in the heat, I decided I was wrong. When I finally found it, I was surprised by the surrounding neighborhood; it didn’t seem like a very nice area, though the school seemed very big, and they seemed to have a lot of playground space. Kelly also mentioned yesterday that the specification ‘CEIP’ (Colegio de Educación Infantil y Primaria) implies that we’ll have students anywhere from 3 to 12 years old, which seems like quite the range – but I suppose I’ll get to experience that soon enough!
Well, quite the “summary,” I know. Sorry it’s lengthy, but if you were wondering how things have been going, that’s been my whirlwind of events in the past week! Photos of the Tomatina, Madrid and Alicante are soon to come. In the meantime, feel free to send an email – I’d always love to hear from you guys   Un saludo de España!

I love this poem, and I figured it’s fairly appropriate for my current situation. “Caminante no hay camino” is a poem by the late 19th century Spanish poet Antonio Machado. “Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar” basically translates to “Traveler, there is no road; you make your path as you walk.“  I suppose that’s what I’m doing, post-graduation – who really knows what they’re in for until they’re already into it? It’s all part of the fun! My favorite verses:

Caminante, son tus huellas

el camino y nada más;

Caminante, no hay camino,

se hace camino al andar.

Al andar se hace el camino,

y al volver la vista atrás

se ve la senda que nunca

se ha de volver a pisar.

Caminante no hay camino

sino estelas en la mar.