It's been a while...

Hello! It's been more than a month - how crazy. Many things have happened in the past month and most of them have been pretty boring, which is why I haven't updated this in a while.

FOR EXAMPLE: On Thursday I had to attend one 50 min class period. It was a gym class and since the gym was occupied by another class, we had to have ours outside. I threw frisbee with three students and the gym teacher Eloy for about 20 minutes, then Eloy had the great idea that we should try to throw frisbees into the basket hoop, which we then attempted to do for about 30 minutes. That is what I did at school on Thursday. On Wednesday I played Ping Pong, watched a French Opera in my bilingual English classroom full of Spanish kids (huh?), and helped some kids read a worksheet in History class. It's not rocket science here, people.

Segovia is full of Christmas lights right now hanging above all of the streets. They all are different patterns and shapes and in the main Plaza there is a giant LED tree that looks awesome.

Last night I went to a bar (heard Grease again...wtf!) with some friends and we saw Papa Noel! They don't open presents until Jan. 6th in Spain because that is the day the three Magi came to visit Jesus. That's like two weeks after us, how ridiculous!

One day I was walking by Hogwarts (you remember Hogwarts right?) when a helicopter landed randomly on the giant concrete area next to the school then flew away almost as quickly.

Here are two soundbites I've taken during the 15 minute choir practice that the music teacher (Jose Luis) hosts in his classroom during Chaos Period. They've chosen a good song!

Happy Christmas by idiomsir?
Warisover by idiomsir?

Tonight I'm going to a Christmas party at the Italian assistant's house. My roommate and I are bringing mulled wine and I'm wearing reindeer antlers (bought at the Chinese Store) + this shirt that my mom bought me last year:

I'll update this next week before Christmas, promise!

My husband dead!

It's been 2 weeks, wow. I apologize for not updating for such a long time but nothing of interest has happened recently and I'd rather put nothing on this blog than something that isn't interesting or funny. For Halloween my mom sent me this stuff ------->

I don't really like candy corn that much (an entire bags worth? no) so I brought the remainder of my supply to school and shared it with the teachers. They were all freaking out! They had never had this before and thought it was so tasty. Even the other English assistant was like "Whaaaa!? Candy Corn!". She said it reminded her of home a lot (me too). Never again will I underestimate the nostalgic power of Candy Corn.

For a size comparison of that peanut butter container (2lbs 8oz) here's another picture:

 I was going for something similar to the bowler hat painting hahah.

There isn't much rhyme or reason to this post other than a few interesting things that have happened to me recently. I went to a cave party...which is literally a party we had in a cave that we found under my friend's apartment complex. My friend Claire lives near the Alcazar (the castle) and in the garage of her complex is a door that leads into this medieval cave/tunnel. It used to be connected to the castle. I can guarantee that there will be plenty of parties in the cave this year :).

Angel's Class by idiomsir?

This is an audio track I took of my loud class in a room that sounds echo-y enough to be a cave. Turn to this up to full volume and you'll understand how it feels to be in their presence. They were asking each other History questions in English. There's obviously also a large amount of Spanish going on too (duh). This is a typical class for me.

Next are some videos I have taken in the past week. Two weeks ago my class acted out a short story called Lamb to the Slaughter. This week another teacher liked the idea so we did it again with a different class. I decided that videos had to be taken because there are so pretty funny moments to note. The first video starts as the girl on the right (playing a guy named Patrick) just told his pregnant wife (played by the girl on the left in blue) that he was leaving her. It (leaving someone) was kind of a weird phrase to explain to the kids. I was like "It's kind of a like a divorce, but not really but kind of. When two people don't love each other any more one of them might just leave/go away." A short synopsis of the story: A man is about to leave his wife for another woman, woman kills man with a frozen piece of lamb, which she then sticks in the oven (the drawer in the teacher's desk haha) and then she goes to the store and buys some groceries, then she comes home and calls the police and when they come they don't discover anything and she invites them to dinner, where they eat the weapon (the lamb) that she used to kill the husband. This first video starts after the wife kills her husband.






My favorite part of this first video is towards the very end, when one of the kids says "there is some frozen dew here (or some word I can't quite make out)" (or something very similar to that) referring to Patrick's body. Now, the entire time they're acting this play out the kids are just kind of winging it and not saying the lines exactly (obviously, if you listen to what the kids actually say), BUT this one kid really wanted to take the play to a whole new level and kept asking me if we could do all of these really complicated, ridiculous things. He wanted everyone to say their lines accurately and wanted the lamb (which was just a dictionary) to be hidden out the window because its cold outside and that would act as a 'freezer' of sorts. I was just like, No, no no no no to everything he said mostly. SO THEN at the very end he adds that frozen dew line which is extra hilarious because A) its not even in the play and B) half of these kids can't form a complete sentence most of the time, yet one of them adds his own line and its about frozen dew, how does he even know what that is! It made me laugh.




This is the second video and has its own share of highlights.
-In the first scene the kid forgets his line for about 20 seconds until the teacher bails him out
-the pregnant wife has no baby bump and doesn't pay the grocer for the food she gets (which the teacher and I laughed about)
-"My husband dead!"
Police-"We have to find the weapon."
Wife-"Would you like to have some supper?"
Police-"....yes."

Halloween and other things

Halloween is not important in Spain. Monday was the saddest Halloween I've ever been apart of. I did not dress up because I had just gotten back from a weekend in Burgos (which consisted of drinking nice, cheap beers and nursing hangovers) and none of my friends were dressing up. Halloween is a Celtic Holiday so you'd think the Irish would have kind of spread the tradition throughout Europe by now...but nope. Everyone laughs at it in Spain (and France too, I hear) and the people who do dress up all look the same: zombie makeup, which is just a really white face with maybe some blood and black raccoon eyes. Lame!

Adding to the sadness of my Monday also was the fact that I was at a bar and during the DJ's "dance music set" (heavy air quotes), they played Grease.......I'm talking Grease Lightning. And it was in no way sarcastic, lemme tell you. Now just let that realization sink in....

I have taken a few interesting pictures since the last time I posted.

 Here is the cathedral in Burgos. Once you've seen one cathedral, you've kind of seen them all! It's a massive, amazing, churchly structure.

 This is a sign in my school's gymnasium. My favorite is the title, slightly cut off in the top left: English ZONE. Maybe I should enter class every day while cracking my knuckles and telling the kids its time to GET INTO THE ENGLISH ZONE.

 Today I had two gym classes and I basically played Ping Pong the entire day with the kids. I think this is going to happen a lot because I mentioned to the gym teacher Eloy that Ping Pong is my favorite sport. He had me teach kids how to hold a paddle and hit the ball, hahah really tough day for me. If its possible to click on the picture to enlarge it, one will notice that these tables are just colored pieces of that ply wood that you might for example find at a new construction site or  decide to burn in a bonfire. The paddles we use are plastic and have felt cloth where you hit the ball. My Ping Pong Elitism left me without words the first time I saw this setup but Eloy says that the kids will ruin a net after a day (yeah I haven't even mentioned the 'net', it's also as you can see a piece of wood) and that the paddles pretty much have to be the strongest material possible because they'll be broken easily as well.

I tried to make a sound recording of the kids in Angel's class today because they were insane as always but my ipod wasn't working :(. Another time.

AND FINALLY: Nothing like walking through Cuellar seeing a guy carrying a couple of dead baby pigs on his shoulder.

*insert joke about Greased pigs*

I.E.S. Marques de Lozoya

I think I've already discussed that I.E.S. Marques de Lozoya (Mar-keys-de-Lo-thoy-ya)(say it with the lisp, its ok)is the school that I'm working at this year. There are about 70 teachers and its always someone's birthday! What a random comment, right? Well in Spain, on your birthday, you give the gifts to everyone else. Go out to the bar? You buy the drinks. Come to the teacher's lounge on your birthday? Better bring some cookies, Ben needs a midday snack! Sometimes teachers buy everyone a coffee for their birthday (their tab is about 60-70$). If I am somehow rich around the time of my birthday then I might consider that option because there should never be a shortage of espresso (or any kind of other teacher pleasing substance such as cookies) in I.E.S. MdL. The reason for that I'll discuss briefly in a section called Kids Please Try to be Quiet, You Just Ruptured My Eardrum. But ahem, that's for later.

When might teachers have time to take a coffee break in between their strenuous (enter: sarcasm) 50 min classes? Well first I think I need to share another interesting detail about my school: there is no cafeteria. There is no "lunch" period per say. THERE IS A PERIOD, but I have grown accustomed to calling it (in my head no less) the Chaos Period. Similar to Chaos Theory in how little I understand about what is actually going on, this period occurs twice throughout the day, once at 1015-1030 and 1215-1230. I swear when the bell rings at 1015 and 1215, there are shrieks and screams of joy, fear, hatred, Spanish, hunger, rage, you name it. The moment the bell rings kids swarm into the hall and proceed to pull little snacks from out of nowhere and eat them while screeching away with their little friends all over the school. Teachers make a B-line for the espresso bar.

Kids Please Try to be Quiet, You Just Ruptured My Eardrum
I have a class with a teacher named Angel (something something something something) Salvador. His name translates to something like the Savior Angel, its funny but not important. What is important is that when I'm trapped in a small room with the worst, most echo-y acoustics of all time while a bunch of kids scream ANNN-HEELLLL ANN-HELLLL all at the same time in whiny voices similar to that of a puppy kennel, I want to take a few shots of alcoh-....Espresso to keep myself from going crazy. Angel told me one time after a class "I feel like I need to start using drugs to be able to deal with this class" haha. And so I cannot fault any teachers (or certain assistants) for their espresso (cookie) habits, because otherwise I really think a lot of these teachers would go insane.

I'm going to give you a little overview of some of my teachers.

Beatriz (Be-a-trizzthe) (Be-a-lisp-the-rest-of-the-way)

me : *sitting, reading my kindle one day*
B: WHeneh the Poh is so Elmo.
M: ......?
B: Weeneh the Pooh is so Emo.
M: WHO? Winnie the Pooh????
B: Yeah, he's so Emo.

(This is an Emo Spongebob for reference. Emo stands for Emotional and Emo kids are kids that wear black and sulk around. It's similar to Goth but less Satanic haha)

Another teacher overhearing us: Emo? What is Emo?
M: It means Emotional.
B: Yeah, you know those kids that dress up in black all of the time and are so depressed.
M: Yeah...but why is Winnie the Pooh Emo? I think he's happy, wouldn't you be happy if you were eating honey all day? C'mon, that sounds great.
B: He's so depresssssing though! He lives in that tree and his friend is that dumb Pig and all he does is eat. (I vaguely remember her responding that Winnie is maybe eating his sorrows away ahahaha)
M: Why not his friend Eeyore, you know? The donkey who's always walking around with the deep, sad voice?
B: Well with a friend like Winnie who wouldn't be depressed!

Felix
I only have one class with him once every two weeks but we talk everyday in the teachers lounge. He's been teaching for a long time (since 93') but he still looks like he's in his mid-late 30s. He's the typical Bachelor teacher and is always trying to get me to download the cool APs that he has on his iDevice. He wears H&M most days (I know this because I was shocked by the teacher dress code of jeans and t-shirts, and he told me that he buys all of his stuff at H&M). I don't really have any funny stories about him yet but he's a really nice guy.

Anna - Head of the English department but the teacher with the thickest accent(?). I typically have Bachillerato (batchy-er-rato) classes with her AKA the sixteen year olds who act like I'm pulling their teeth when I ask questions or make them do anything. The only time I ever get them to respond is when I tell them what I did on the weekend (went drinking, read a book, etc) and they are of the age (at 16 most kids are allowed to drink alcohol in Europe fyi) where that's what they do most weekends minus the book reading. I told them that I was reading something similar to Harry Potter (I'm reading Game of Thrones and before you go thinking that that is a terrible thing to compare to Harry Potter, just wait) and so I'm like:

"Harry Potter...Harry...Potter??? HARRY POTTER. HP. Boy wizard...Harry Potttaaaaaaaaaaa?"
*blank stares from the entire class*
I start to laugh because I think its absurd that they don't understand what I'm saying. Yet I continue
"Hair....REEE...POtter? No, nothing?" Then I write in on the board and they all have this epiphany and are like 'Arry Potter! Why didn't you say so Ben!? They really didn't say that last sentence but they acted like it. So then I'm like

"Ok so who here has read Harry Potter?" The answer to that is no one. Someone said they had seen the movies and I wanted to just scream Avada Kedavra! The movies SUCK! I did still tell them that the movies suck but I didn't kill them, no...but none of them have any clue what HP is, nor do they know what Lord of the Rings is about. So in the end I just went to the board and wrote 'Game of Thrones'. Then I'm like

"You know what a game is obviously. Do you know the world throne?.......You know, what a king sits on?...A King...Un Rey?"
"Ohh yess yes yess Ben we know what a king is now, rey is king."
Me: "Ok so do you know this word, throne? It's the chair that the king sits in. A chair of kings...una silla de reyes" I start to build an invisible chair in mid air in front of them because apparently the word silla (see-ya)(means chair)(one of the easiest spanish words ever!) is utterly lost upon them.
"OhhhHHH yes, TRONO! Trono Ben, trono."

I do not find that there is a huge difference between Throne and Trono. A non-Spanish speaking person could probably get around Spain by the simple fact that so many English and Spanish words share like 50-80% of the same letters. Moral of the story: Bachilleratos are lazy, so whatever.

I'll save my other teachers for another day. I'll try to update this again on Thursday before I head off to Burgos (2 hours north) for the long weekend.

Segovia (cont.)

This is an old timey map of Segovia. I've drawn the blue circles (with the spray paint tool from Paint no less) to highlight what I would consider the most important places in Segovia if someone were to visit. Firstly, about half of Segovia is cut off on the bottom, but it doesn't really matter because I would assume if anyone was going to visit, they would want to visit the historical things, and there is nothing historical south of this map. They are just a lot of cheap bars and a place called Nueva Segovia.  

The black line on the map toward the bottom right in the aqueduct. It is massive and awesome. I've posted pictures of it already so no need to talk about it much more. The blue circle farthest to the right is *drum rollplease* my house. 

 living room

my room

kitchen! complete with washing machine haha and a capacity of about one person at a time.

the main hallway

OK go back to the map and look at the middle blue circle. That is the monstrous cathedral that is located in our town. I feel as though it is Spanish mandate that there be a huge church in each town and so here is ours.

 We have a castle as well (blue circle on the far left)! The Alcuzar. One time I called it the Azucar and my friend goes "the sugar?!". I have not been inside yet but I hear that it only costs a euro so I think it'd be worth it.

There was a Segovian festival the other weekend that celebrated the patron saint of Segovia. It is some lady whose name I did not catch but anyway here are some pictures of what the festival looked like. There was a parade from the main square to the cathedral that took about a half hour. Everyone in the parade was dressed up! There was also some dancing and singing invovled.

Pictures and Haircuts

This is spray painted on the school gym. Spanish people LOVE the Simpsons, let me tell you. It's on television non-stop (Spanish Homer is the only voice that sounds remotely similar - they chose a voice actor that has the same whimsical Homer excitement in his voice. Next time you watch the Simpsons I think you'll know what I mean). We were talking about inventions in one of my classes and my teacher goes "So you remember that episode where Homer is an inventor?" and the look on the kid's faces showed that they grew up with it pretty much as much as we did. They were all instantly laughing and helping her explain the scene, it was great and surprising. There are Duff shirts and sweatshirts around every corner of Segovia/Cuellar. The Simpsons are a staple here!

 There are many Anarchy symbols spray painted throughout Cuellar but I thought this one looked the coolest. 

These next two are side by side on this random, crumby building that I walk by on my way to the supermarket. I'm not sure what medium they used to create them (I really doubt it is spray paint), but they're totally cool.

 Although this is not what I would call a "traditional" piece of art, I would maybe lump it into the Art category for the sheer absurdity of it. This is in the Chinese Store. That is a television that shows all of the security cameras in the entire store, but I swear you have to get a magnifying glass out to figure out what the hell is going on. The Chinese Store is what I would say is as close to a thrift store as one is going to find in Spain. Firstly, I've been told there are absolutely no secondhand/thrift stores in Spain, so thats sad, but secondly the Chinese Store is full of junk. PILES OF RANDOMNESS. It is definitely the Chamber of Secrets/Room of Requirement in this place (HP references for those that are lost on that sentence). They have so many ridiculous things, you could spend hours walking around like "Wtf is that doing here?" or "Of course I need a plastic waterfall that creates mist!". There is an amazing amount of American Kitsch found in the Chinese Store in Spain, lemme tell ya. I'll leave it at that sentence until my next full exploration of the place.

 This is a wall that my friend Erin pointed out to me while we were on our way to an art museum in Madrid. Notice the tiny woman on the bottom left for size comparisons. This wall is probably close to three stories high and covered in mosses and grasses and all sorts of really cool looking plants that just hang there. I was shocked when I turned a corner and this thing was there.

 HAHA What in the world! It's a ball that kids get into and then struggle to stand in while they float around this little pool. It is located in the middle of this mall-like shopping center that I go to get groceries. Amazing, yes I know.

Small essay on Haircuts

Spain will teach you a thing or two about haircuts. I thought it was universally agreed upon by the time the 21st century began that the mullet was never again allowed to walk the face of this planet but I promise you I see one - and cringe - everyday. I'll be walking through the bus station after school minding my own business and BAM MULLET! Sometimes I find myself looking so long in shock and disbelief that I have not yet turned my head forward in time to see what/who I am walking into. We've also got a lot of Jedi Knights in training (known as Padawans to the uninformed) via that beauty on the right. Let me clarify by saying that I'm not one to really care about fashion and I have definitely been guilty of a bad haircut in my day but these are slightly criminal and I thought it'd be funny to write about. The end.

Cuellar smelled like old people today. Interpret that as you please.

First Post!

Before I tell you anything remotely important!:

Today is the first day that I've had internet in the comfort of my own home for about a month. Since my arrival to Spain on September 7th I've been sitting in cafes and on street curbs talking to my parents and friends, telling them that the loud, strange sound in the background was a car driving too fast, someone steaming milk/ making an esspresso shot or a person talking after just having noticed a guy sitting on a stoop outside his old hostel, hiding from the hostel employees while attempting to steal their internet only until they eventually change their password, rendering his wifi capabilities completely USELESS (I'm not bitter). Some people don't know where their next meal is going to come from, meanwhile I'm complaining that I couldn't play Words With Friends (its a knockoff Scrabble) on my iTouch, but alas, it was tough living with such infrequent internet. Moral of the story: if you're obsessed with internet access, don't move to Spain.

Anyway, on to important things: I'm alive and living in Spain! The city I live in is called Segovia (in the region known also as Segovia). It's about an hour and 10 minutes north of Madrid by bus (Madrid is smack dab in the center of Spain if you don't see it in the first picture).

Segovia is known for pretty much one grand attraction: The Aqueduct. It is something like a thousand years old, built by the Romans and contains no cement (nothing holds the pieces together except gravity and perfect engineering!). Segovia has about 55,000 residents and it really swells to an annoying amount on the weekends because it is very easy to get here from Madrid. It's a tranquil city otherwise and I am glad to be living here.

What am I doing here? I'm working!...12 hours a week.... (that's what the Spanish call work haha). Yes, 12 hours a week is not a lot but I'm also getting paid for only 12 hours, (700E a month which is about $1000 dollars) so its a give and take. Considering though that it cost me more to live in Columbus (the rent and food here is cheaper and the public transportation is better), I think I've got a pretty good bargain.

Oh, did I mention I don't work on Fridays? And that I don't go into work until 1pm on Mondays, only to stay for 2 hours and then leave? This is pretty much standard of all of the language assistants (there are 2 French, 2 German, 1 Italian, and 7 English assistants in Segovia I believe). Some of them only work 3 days a week too, so that is an even more unbelievable schedule.

My school is located in a town called Cuellar, which is an hour north of Segovia. It is also an hour south of Valladolid, the only other city with a direct route to Cuellar (that's important in a second). Cuellar has less than 10,000 residents and is what we call a Pueblo. PWAY-BLOW. I was told by teachers and the government officials who assigned me to the Segovia region that it would be super boring and foolish to live in Cuellar, so I decided Segovia would be the calm/chill best bet. I have trouble finding things to do in Segovia, so imagine living in a town a 1/5 of the size. The other language assistant that I work with in Cuellar lives in Valladolid and says its too busy and not that great, so all in all Segovia is the wisest place to be at the moment.

Cuellar is interesting. It's bus station is strategically placed at the bottom of a huge hill that I have to walk up everyday to get to my school *grumble* (I take the bus, I think I forgot to mention). Small towns in Spain are just like small towns in the States:there are tiny Mom and Pop stores everywhere and usually a group of Townies smoking a cigar and drinking beers at the local pub at 10am on a Tuesday. The first time I came to Cuellar I got lost and eventually stumbled upon ---->>>>>>>>
Hogwarts is what I refer to it as in my mind. It's an old castle turned school that is visible from miles and miles away. I always know when I'm looking at Cuellar on the horizon (a lot of the pueblos look the exact same on my way to school fyi) because I can find Hogwarts. I was so excited and thought it was my school at first but haha NOPE it's just the school I enviously walk past everyday on the way to my tiny school I.E.S. Marques De Lozoya (no pic yet). I do have a random note to make about Cuellar: it smells strange and different almost every time I go there. One day it was cow manure, which okay yeah it's not that strange, but then another day it was straight up Onions. Onions, as in 'I might cry/who just plowed that acre of Onions'. I told my gym teacher that and he added that it kind of smelled like carrots too, haha. Today though had to be my most favorite smell to date lol: Elmer's Glue. I swear it was just 100% Kindergarten Classroom in Cuellar (which before anyone asks, no they do not use this glue in the school and no one teaches Kindergarten there either). The whole city just smelled of glue, Elmer's Glue I Tell YOU! I saw some kids covering their noses when the windows were open, so I definitely wasn't just imagining it.

I'm going to finish my first post with an explanation of why I've called my blog Where's The Peanut Butter? and not SpainyMcSpainersonBenIsInSpain. Firstly, Spanish people are not down with peanut butter at all. I don't think Europeans are in general. I, on the other hand, have lived off of peanut butter for many a day, month, year, decade, etc, so it's kind of an important food item to have stocked at home at all times. I was in the Eroski (think Kroger, Giant Eagle, Biggs, Walbarf) looking for things, running into pig legs and REAL Duff beer, when I just thought to myself "Where's the Peanut Butter?". It's never difficult to find in the US but seriously there are two jars to choose from: crunchy and crunchy, I believe, and it's under the foreign foods section, also known as the Unresourceful Americans Who Aren't Branching Out Enough...section.

I have much more to say but I'm tired (its past midnight here) and I need to think of so more things to write, so until later, adios!