It’s been a pretty average week, sort of starting to get into the routine of things. All week at school I’ve mostly been doing a presentation of Nebraska culture. At first it was hard to dig up interesting stuff about our fine state, but eventually I learned to embellish a little and exaggerate a lot. They find tornadoes EXTREMELY exciting – they oooh and ahhh over pictures of them. One of my slides was about music, and I was very impressed when one of my students knew who Bright Eyes and Elliot Smith were. Smart girl.
I also try to tell them about the excitement of Husker game days in Lincoln, but can never quite relay exactly what tailgating is. “Sitting in a parking lot and drinking beer all day? I don’t understand.” Every time I show a picture of the husker stadium there is a communal *gasp* as they take in the “sea of red” and their eyes widen when I tell them that it can fit the entire population of their town of 75,000. Also, when I talk about American football (regular football is what they call soccer here… which, when you think about it, makes much more sense) they say “Oh yeah! Rugby!” No, not rugby…
Mostly though, my students are hilarious and really quite sweet. In one of my classes of kids about 14, a boy drew this elaborate picture on the chalk board that said “WE LOVE NEBRASKA!!” in the middle, and when the teacher made him erase it so she could write stuff, he got all upset, but settled for re-writing it in the corner of the board and then sporadically yelling “I love Nebraska!” throughout the class. Then, in another class of 16-17 year olds, a boy raised his hand and patiently waited to be called on, and when I pointed to him he said “Ehh... You have very beautiful eyes!” Boy, do they train their boys young here! So needless to say, I have felt very welcome at the school. Whenever I arrive or leave, I get a chorus of Hellos and Goodbyes from every which direction and typically an “I love Nebraska” thrown in at least once. Well, at least I’m representing our great state well.
Ha, oh yeah, so funny story. I’m going to have to give you all a little Spanish lesson in the process, so try to bear with me. So, in the Spanish language nouns referring to people or animals or whatnot are generally given feminine and masculine forms according to what it referring to. For example – Andy and Kyle are my AMIGOS but Jami and Cortney are my AMIGAS. Masculine words will typically end in –E/ES or –O/OS and feminine words will typically end in –A/AS. However, if I were to be talking about all four of them, I would just refer to them as AMIGOS; with the masculine ending (yeah it’s sexist, get over it) even though half them are female. So anyway, back to my story. Outside the teacher’s lounge there is a bathroom that says “aseos profesores” on the door – aseos means bathroom, so it means “professor’s bathrooms”. It is just a one-room bathroom, no stalls or anything, so I sort of assumed that the –ES at the end of “profesores” meant teachers in general, not just men, and I had used that one a couple of times. Well, earlier this week that one was occupied so I walked all the way down the hall to find the other and realized it said “aseos profesoras” on the door – with and –AS. Whoops, looks like I’d been using the men’s bathroom, and nobody told me. The other teachers have got to think I’m an idiot.
In general though, Spain really cracks me up. There was a recipe on the back of my vegetable stock for “Vegetable Soup” – you know what the main ingredient was? Bacon. Also, they feel the need to write “Gluten Free!” on the most random things, like orange juice and ketchup. Seriously? I would hope there’s not gluten in my OJ or ketchup, but thanks for clarifying, just in case. Also, I absolutely LOVE the way parents dress their kids. They dress kids of the same sex in identical outfits and then they will use the same color scheme if they have kids of both sexes. It’s absolutely adorable. Also, something that makes me slightly sad is the way dogs are trained to behave around strangers here. Unlike in the US where dogs are trained to socialize and they typically love meeting new people and sticking their nose up their butts, dogs here pretty much ignore anybody who isn’t their owner. I feel so rejected by the pooches here! I need some dog-lovin’!
Since we’re discussing things I miss… Mmmmm enchiladas. And Jimmy John’s. And fast food. And public restrooms with a) toilet paper and b) toilet seats. And refrigerated milk and eggs. But most of all…. I miss all of you!!!!!!!!!! Wish you all were here! For those of you who don’t have Skype yet – SHAME! You had better get it soon! Also, I very much miss the familiarity of my bus drivers back home. I miss getting a jolly grin and a "Hello!" and a "Cya!" when getting on and off my bus. The bus drivers here could care less :(
Not a whole lot happening this weekend, we have two girls coming to stay with us who are friends with my roommates, but not much else. Last weekend Leslie’s French friend Mathieu stayed with us, and we took him around for tapas (though he’s from France he’d only been to Spain once a long time ago – he had a lot to learn about Spanish food and drink!) and then on Saturday we took him to Coruna, where we just walked around a bit and ate at a sort of fancy restaurant – pics posted at the right.
So you know, you guys get to hear about everything I’m up to all the time, but I have NO IDEA what’s going on back home! And that makes me sad. So from now on, I expect updates! :P I need some bits of home over here, even just the small stuff. What’s everybody being for Halloween? I assume it won’t trump our costumes from last year, but I still wanna know! Let me know in the comments or something :) People don’t really celebrate Halloween here in Galicia, though a few places try to make money off (tiny) pumpkins and kitschy decorations, so I’m craving some Halloween festivity!
Well I think that’s going to have to be the end of this blog, my roommies’ friends are about to get here and I’ve got to change out of my sweats so we can go out to eat! And no, it is not socially acceptable to go outside in sweats here. *Sigh*
Until next time folks! Hope everybody has a good weekend!
Enjoy this week's soundtrack:
Au Revoir Simone -- A Violent Yet Flammable World
Au Revoir Simone -- A Violent Yet Flammable World
Also, I ran into this video while searching for the previous one and it's just so beautiful I couldn't help but posting it! Check it ouuuut:
Love you all
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