Halloween, Spanish Style

Sunday was halloween here in Spain, just like back home in the States. Halloween here isn't a huge holiday, but it is gaining some traction. Lots of kids wear costumes and my town even had a haunted house for the first time ever this year. A couple of my friends hosted a halloween party at their apartment and then we went to the club afterward in our costumes. I got a cheap mask, sword, and hat and went as Zorro.

Today is a national holiday, so everything is closed. It's a holiday in which people go to the cemetary and take care of their family members' graves and put flowers and everything. Lots of people are back in town from where they are currently living for the weekend. More importantly for me, the extra day off after Halloween has been nice for recuperating, and I'm sure a bunch of people my age in America wish there was a day off after Halloween.

The store that I bought my Halloween costume from is called the Hiper-Chino. These type of stores are everywhere in Don Benito, and they stay open on Sunday and have EVERYTHING you could ever want. It's like a really small Wal-Mart owned by Chinese families and the prices are better. Everyone just calls them "chinos" because of how different they are from the rest of stores in Spain. Walking into the chino around the corner from my house is always fun because of the things I am amazed that they have.

Tomorrow it's back to the grind, hopefully we will be paid soon because I'm getting cabin fever from staying in Don Benito for so long while the other auxiliars are jet-setting for Amsterdam and Barcelona seemingly every weekend. I'm jealous now and it sucks!




Halloween with friends

What I Miss

I'm finally starting to actually feel settled here in Don Benito. Things feel normal, I have a routine. Still haven't made friends with locals, but I've made the acquaintance of a few.

I've been gone long enough to miss things now. I am really craving Mexican food and an In-N-Out cheeseburger. Yes mom I miss your cooking too. The stir-fry with the snow peas and peanuts would be awesome right now. I miss my queen size bed. My bed here is about six inches too short, I sleep with one foot on the footboard. I miss American water heaters, our pilot light keeps blowing out unexpectedly which sucks when you want to take a shower in the morning. I also miss having a weekly paycheck, we probably won't get paid for another month and I'm surviving off of private lesson money. I miss American pop music. The music here, while growing on me, is all European techno-pop.

Things I don't miss: having to drive EVERYWHERE. $3.50 cups of coffee, it's highway robbery when you think of how little it really costs to make. Commercial breaks on tv every 12 minutes. American women in general. Sorry ladies, ya'll are completely outclassed by the Spanish chicks over here. Maybe you should get off your iPhones and get some fresh air? No there's not an app for that.

This weekend we had a few friends from other towns stay with us in Don Benito. It was nice to have some friends over to party with. On friday we went to the botellon just outside of town which is where everyone takes their cars and plays music from huge speakers and drinks in the parking lot. This type of thing would never, ever happen in California. The police would break it up in a heartbeat. Here the police just circle around and make sure there everyone is alright.

While I wait to get paid from the Spanish government, I have made a mental list of places I plan on traveling to. Paris is at the top of the list, with Lisbon, Berlin, Salamanca and the north of Spain just below.



Hasta luego for now!

Last week I was talking to the one of the teachers at my school about how I wanted to find a soccer team to play with. He said he would call his friend who was the daughter of the manager of C.A. Gimnastico Don Benito. He did and the next day I went to train with them. They are in the 5th division of Spain and they play other teams around Extremadura. The first practice was rough, we ran 10 or 12 laps around the field and that was just the warmup. I somehow made it through that, but I was pretty gassed the rest of the practice. I've since been to two other training sessions and my fitness has gotten way better since then. It feels good to be on a team again and knocking the ball around. We practice on the Don Benito stadium grass and also on a lighted field-turf field behind the stadium.

Last Tuesday I participated in a yearly tradition here in Don Benito. It's a pilgrimage with the Virgen de Las Cruces from the church in the center of town to her chapel 8 km outside town. A bunch of people carry her the entire distance on their shoulders. It's called La Vela' and there were maybe five-thousand people walking the distance with friends and family. I left alone, but met up with Aleksis and his girlfriend along the way. When we got to the chapel there was food, and a flea market of sorts. It was pretty fun, but my feet hurt a lot after all that walking. We took the bus back into town at around 12:30 p.m. and then I fell asleep.

I have also started working at the school. It's been two weeks now, and I have just about seen all the classes that I will be with. I have 24 classes that I will see once every two weeks. Needless to say there are a lot of faces and names, too many to remember really. Spanish high schools are set up differently from American ones. They have six grades all together in one school from 11-12 year olds up all the way to maybe 20 year olds who have taken longer to graduate. The first four years are mandatory, but the last two are optional, but necessary to get into college.

The students are all pretty enthusiastic and pretty much ask me the same questions every day. What is your favorite Spanish food? Do you know any famous people? Do you have a girlfriend? So far I've only done introductions, but tomorrow the real lessons will likely begin. I haven't been asked to plan lessons, only assist so it's pretty easy and fun to do.

I also have acquired a bunch of students for private lessons. I have 8 or 9 hours right now, and the extra money helps. It's pretty fun, and I have students of all ages, so I have to custom tailor each lesson for the target group.

Well hasta luego for now!

Orientation in Caceres and Living in Don Benito

On the 29th of September, all of Spain experienced a general strike. The trains and planes supposedly shut down, but in Caceres the impact seemed minimal. I saw some people marching in the streets and there were stickers put up all over town saying "Closed due to the strike," but nothing seemed to really be closed.

I got to Caceres two nights early which was cool because I got to spend a few extra days getting to know some people who would be living nearby. The orientation was basically a waste of time, but meeting most of the people was nice. There were about 140 of us at the orientation, so meeting everyone in one day was virtually impossible. The town of Caceres is absolutely beautiful and a pretty fun town as well. My camera broke in Florida, otherwise I would have snapped a ton of photos. The university students were hazing the freshmen since it was their first week of college. The were getting written on in sharpie, eggs cracked on their heads, sprayed with water, but all in all it was in good spirit and everyone seemed to be having fun. One of the more brave students came up to me and we talked for a while. I asked her about Don Benito and she said it was one of the more fun towns around. Sweet. She told me where everyone was going out that evening and a dozen or so of us auxiliars went out and met up with them.


Students being hazed by upperclassmen

After orientation my teacher drove me to Don Benito from Caceres. It was about an hour drive, and through a bunch of little pueblos along the way. The countryside along the way was full of fields separated by old stone walls. Really interesting stuff.

The second day in Don Benito we signed up for an apartment. I'll be living with an english girl and a girl from Iowa. The apartment belongs to my teacher's father and it is a pretty good fit I feel. It's relatively cheap and I haven't found anything wrong with it yet.

Today the three of us went with Aleksis and Tom to the Don Benito-Arroyo soccer match. The stadium was about a 3 or 4 minute walk from our apartment. About 200 people were in the stands to witness our beloved C.D. Don Benito defeat Arroyo 2-1. Just before halftime it started raining and we were told we could move from our cheaper side to the home side to get out of the rain.

All evening it has been raining. Strangely the rain is different from how it rains in California. My english roommate Victoria told me that this is a European rain. The raindrops are smaller, so it doesn't seem to be getting you as wet as it really is. My clothes were drying on the line when it started raining, and since we don't really have anywhere to put them, I guess they are just going to get wet again.


Caceres


Caceres