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!