First Day of Fall in Madrid

It's a quiet Friday afternoon in Madrid; the perfect time to fill everyone in on my adventures over here!

Honestly I do not have a whole lot to report, since school has started, we've really settled into a routine and we haven't had much of a chance to explore much.

However, last Saturday, as the last part of our orientation, Middlebury chartered a bus and we all drove to Segovia, one of the oldest cities in Madrid. It was absolutely beautiful and a great way to spend the day. Everyone is really embarrassed of the cathedral in Madrid because it looks really French, but the cathedral in Segovia was incredible. Here are a couple pictures, but I don't know if my phone's camera does it justice (really wish I had taken your camera, Pops). The style is called Gotica Florida, which basically means ornate and flowery and renaissancy. Everything was gold and massive and the organ would have made Kevin drool.

There were about 25 side rooms, each one with something like this or artwork.

Nothing makes me happier than a castle, and luckily for me, Segovia has probably Spain's most famous castle. It was the getaway of Isabel and Ferdinand, amongst others.

Also, it was partly the inspiration for the castle at Disneyworld.

Knight; throneroom.

Segovia also has the best preserved Roman aqueduct in the world because the desert climate allowed it to survive perfectly:

Segovia's famous traditional dish is "cochinillo", which is suckling pig. We split one amongst 6 of us. Pretty delish. I ate the kidney and the tongue. Decided to stay away from the nose, eyeballs, brain, and tail.


School is going pretty well, the teachers talk pretty slowly so everyone can understand them, and although the homework takes a lot longer to do since it's in Spanish, there is a lot less of it. One of my classes is called Spanish Art of the 20th Century and half of our classes is just going to famous museums and looking at art, so that's pretty cool. I probably wouldn't be making it to too many museums if not for the class.

One of the most fun, surprisingly, part of living alone has been cooking for myself every night. Last night I made Tortilla Española for everyone in my apartment. It's the most classic Spanish tapas, and I got rave reviews from the natives, so I was pretty happy with the turnout.

I hate that I'll be missing Vermont fall for the first time. Here it's just more heat and sun and dryness. I would kill for some mountains and rivers right about now. Abby had a couple hiking suggestions for me that I am definitely going to try out before too long. In the meantime, feel free to send me some pictures of some foliage or other fall-y things I'm missing out on!

Love you all! Talk soon!


Few more pictures:

City hall in Madrid.

Lake in the middle of Retiro Park where I run everyday.

In Plaza Mayor, one of the bigger and older squares of Madrid.

pretty in love with this little guy...

An update and pictures

Hello everyone, haven't had a chance to post in a while due to spotty internet at my hostal, but I finally have an apartment of my own! That process was pretty awful, we spent three days doing nothing except walking around in the incredibly hot sun trying to find apartments. Finally I found one, but I'm glad I waited, because I love what I ended up with. I have a big room in a great neighborhood and I'm living with three young Spanish guys, so my Spanish is going to improve a lot more than most of the other students who are living in student apartments with lots of people who don't speak Spanish very well.

On Sunday we went to our first bullfight. I was really excited for this, but once you're sitting there watching a confused bull get tortured and killed, its a little more difficult to stomach. I'm glad we went for the cultural experience, but I probably wont be going again. We were also really confused about what was happening the whole time, but everyone is really proud of their city and culture so they were more than happy to try to explain what was going on. Every bullfight goes through 6 bulls, and the same thing happens in the same order every time, so I didn't really understand what the excitement was all about, but the people here get very into it.

One good thing about doing so much apartment hunting is that I've gotten to see a lot of the city. Each neighborhood (barrio) has its own feel. Chueca, where our school is, is Madrid's gay neighborhood, so its got lots of alternative, hip places to eat and go out. Sol is the most central neighborhood with bustling nightlife and shops. I live in a barrio called Atocha. It's really nice, and its where the Prado is, as well the botanical gardens and the national congress.

Since school has not started yet, we've been going out at night and getting to know a lot of people. We already have a pretty big network of American students, especially from Duke and Richmond. None of us really have enough courage yet to befriend native Spaniards, but I'm sure as our language skills improve we'll branch out a little. The nightlife is very fun, most people don't go out til midnight or later and everything stays open til 5 or 6 or later.

School starts on Monday, we've been doing orientation and taking some placements tests. Getting back into the routine of school and having to face the fact that I'm not here on vacation is going to be difficult. But at the same time, living out of a suitcase has been stressful as well, and I'm really glad that I finally have a place to live and that my life will be getting back to normal.

Today we went on a walking tour with some helpers from the school. We saw the royal palace and cathedral and went to a huge park. Madrid is more or less a desert climate during the summer so the park is pretty much completely dead right now, but apparently its quite nice during the winter and spring. I forgot my phone so couldn't take any pictures.

It's siesta time here, but I'll write again soon. Love you all and thinking about you!

Some nice looking building.

John in front of some other nice looking building.

Bullfight.

My room.

hola!

hello to everyone from Madrid!

I've got some down time so I figured I'd fill you all in on my first few days in my new home.

Madrid is just lovely, I wish I had some pictures for you, but I'm not very good about that yet. Right now I'm living in a hostel with Forrest. We'll be living here for a few more days until we find apartments to live in. It's quite nice, we have our own bathroom and TV and fridge, which I stocked today with sandwich supplies and orange juice, etc. so we don't have to buy lunch every day. Our hostel is two doors away from the school I'll be going to, so chances are my apartment will be somewhere in the vicinity as well. It is right in the middle of Madrid.

Madrid is a very old city with narrow streets and alleyways and city squares every few blocks. We are a 5 minute walk from two of the biggest squares, "el Plaza Mayor" y "el Plaza del Sol". Streets shoot off of each of these in every direction and are filled with bars, restaurants, and shops. The nightlife is always very lively, but the first night we were here there was a game between Real Madrid and Barcelona (the two best soccer teams in Spain, and probably the world, and HUGE rivals) in Madrid, so the city was a bit crazy. Madrid won and everyone was driving around in the streets honking horns and waving flags. It was a great way to get thrown into the local culture.

Right now there are 5 of us from Middlebury here, with more and more arriving every day. Nobody knows where we should be going to see cool stuff, so we're all just kind of figuring stuff out as we go. Most people, and everyone over the age of 40, do not speak English, so we're being forced to speak a lot of Spanish, which is good, but also really hard. It makes everyday tasks like getting groceries or finding a bank seem really daunting.

It gets very hot here during the day, so from 2 to 5 everyone goes on a long lunch/ nap ("una siesta") and all the shops shut down. It means the night begins a lot later, but there is a really nice breeze during the night and I'm definitely going to like the schedule here.

Tomorrow were spending the day at a huge park near my hostel and then next week I start orientation.

I'll write again soon, can't wait to hear from everyone, I'm feeling pretty homesick right now.
Love you all!

A wonderful day at Pre-K!

Today was a great day in Northwestern Pre-K. We were all very busy being artists, putting on puppet shows, building cities with blocks, and cutting up magazines. 

In math we talked about the color red and sorted objects from a magic bag into piles of red and not red.

In reading we read "Go Away Big Green Monster!" and then we made our own Big Green Monsters.  Aren't they wonderful?? 

As the days go on we are adding all kinds of beautiful things to our Northwestern Museum of Fine Art.

Today was also a good day because little Ariana tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I luh you Ms. Ross." I luh you too, Ariana.
And I also luh all of you!

Would you like a comb? I mean some orange juice?

"Ms. Ross you should comb your hair it's gettin all nappy."

I can always count on my Prepsters for honesty.
I know I owe you all a really long blog post updating you on school! It will be coming soon, I promise.
Love you all!

Cornerstone in the news

Happy Monday Family!

I just wanted to pass on an  article about Muslim families and my school (Cornerstone). It's very controversial right now. Cornerstone used to be a private Christian school which is why a lot of Muslim families think it is still Christian, even though now we are a public charter school and not teaching the bible. MCS is sort of taking advantage of that assumption and courting Muslim families to Douglas, even though a lot of the refugees would rather have their kids go to school in their own neighborhood. We also have an amazing ESL teacher and program, and it would be so sad to have the neighborhood kids not benefit from that. Anyway, read the article if you like it's pretty interesting.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jul/30/two-public-school-systems-in-memphis-court/