Planes de carreras

I have spent the last day relaxing, which in my world means reading food blogs, reading books, and researching every road race Madrid has to offer and then working on which maratón I want to run this year. I have never run a marathon, so this is a big undertaking, but having no training plans really puts a damper on my spirits and this is a great way to keep me going and give me a way to really see a city. Much better than running a marathon in, say, DC?

I've signed up for a 10k in Madrid on November 6th with one of my very best friends, who has some Spanish friends that will be joining us. We know we get a Reebok shirt, but she's also heard there may be free socks involved! Can you believe it?! There's almost nothing in the world I like more than free, new socks. Other than free, new shoes, of course...

I'm looking ahead to the spring for the marathon, which will put the start of my training around the beginning to middle of December, though if I am already training for an upcoming 10k, I should be on track. It's pretty much coming down to either spending upwards of 200 or 300 Euros to go run Barcelona's, which I hear is an incredible race and one I certainly want to do someday, and rushing back the afternoon after I run to be back at school Monday morning, or running Madrid's, which would mean I'd already be in my home city and could just stumble my way back to my own bed when it's all over. My sister is thinking of coming down to the city for the Madrid race, as it's right in the middle of her spring break and there is a 10k option. I'm leaning Madrid, but Barcelona would be so beautiful! And what if I get hurt doing this one and can never ever run again?! Maybe that's just wishful thinking...

Barcelona Marató

Rock n' Roll Madrid

Decisions, decisions, decisiones...

Jornada de formación

Yesterday 85-90 auxiliares de conversación joined in what I would call a not-great part of the city, at a Ministry of Education building, to be "trained" on what it means to be an auxiliar, how the school system in Madrid works, and some additional things that were probably the highlights and lowlights for me.

Learning about the structure of the Madrid school system, how the hours are split between subjects, etc. was great. The 90 of us are all working in non-bilingual schools, which means we don't have at least 30% of class time in English. Our students (at the secondary level) will only have 3 hours of English language instruction every week, and it is a program that needs a lot of help as a result of this lack of time. This is the first year they have brought in so many of us and they're hoping to bring in more as more money becomes available every year, but with La crisis this may prove difficult. We are here to assist the English department, bringing in new and original material and activities to get the conversation and everyday-practical level of English up.

Aside from that, we got a presentation from two State Department representatives: the first was a security department guy, the team that makes sure places are safe for diplomats to live, travel, etc. He was very AMERICAN, if you know what I mean. Making comments about weapons, how we're better, and how this isn't Iran (as though Iran is the worst place to possibly be in the world). It really rubbed me the wrong way, but his colleague balanced him out, showing me the other side of the State Department, the culture side. She was of the belief that State does everything perfectly; they share cultural activities and materials, they give young people all the opportunities they could ever want through internships, and they are just a marvelous resource for us here in Spain. I was generally turned off by the presentation, especially with the questions from the incredulous US members of the crowd as they learned that carrying pepper spray in Spain is illegal. This is why Spain is amazing! VERY few weapons of any type, and if you are caught with a weapon in a robbery or whatever, you will be the one arrested, even if you were defending yourself and that weapon is registered. This is a great thing! Our country has taught us to protect ourselves and not trust anyone, and this has meant a lot more violence than necessary in the US. Spain has it right, girls, you really don't need your pepper spray, just don't be stupid.

The end of the orientation consisted of two of the Ministry staff getting us signed up for appointments with the local police to get our Foreign Residency Cards next week, rather than with the appointments we had gotten for ourselves, all of those being in May or later of next year (mine was May 9th at 9:00AM, and my visa "expires" on December 15th). I will present myself with my documents next Wednesday at the police office in the city. The process for signing up for appointments took about 1.5 hours extra because every time Leticia would stop talking, the people in the room would raise the chatter volume to the point of near-yelling and then complain that it was taking forever... Not putting 2 and 2 together? Guess not. Maybe it's the language barrier. Or that they all were presenting the impatient US attitude we all know so well.

That's all for now! The next two days are super relaxed and probably won't consist of much. I might not even leave the neighborhood! I may have to dig the old running shoes out of the bottom of the suitcase, though I am moving on Saturday morning, because I might go stir-crazy without exercise. All the walking to visit pisos was great, but now that that's done...

Tengo un piso!

After almost an entire week of looking for an apartment here in the city, I have FINALLY found one. I was getting a bit impatient, though that’s not really that long of a time to search. I’d say it’s pretty standard to look that long, and I am pretty excited about what I’ve found. Here’s the run-down:

- Less than a five-minute walk to the bus station from which I will go to work every day. This is important because the town where I am working is 30km from the city, and the bus schedule tells me it takes 45 minutes to get there, so living this close is pretty great.

- The other auxiliary that I will be working with out at the school lives about two blocks from this place and I’ve met one of his roommates already. I already know some neighbors!

- The area is very student-oriented. While that means that walking down the streets I often hear a bit of English (which I vehemently avoid), it is young and presumably still “happening” at night, making it a safer neighborhood to walk around at all hours of the day or night.

- BIG living room with dining table, porch to dry clothes, big kitchen with a little table in there, too. Generally a great amount of space.

- Roommates. This is the big part of the search – I didn’t get to meet roommates in many of the places I visited and the three in this apartment, as we say in Spanish, Me cayeron bien, which literally means, “They fell me well” but is said to mean “I liked them.” Here we go…One is from the city of Granada, a wonderful city that I loved visiting 4 years ago and hope to get back to this year. She is working in Madrid. The other girl is from Alicante and she is studying her masters in biology-something. The third is a guy from Extremadura in the West also studying his masters in biology-something. He has a separate bathroom with his room, so the other three of us share the other bathroom, which is also fairly spacious. And we all know I am pretty low-maintenance, so I can easily share with that many people.

- I was shown how to get to the “cheaper, but still with a good quality” grocery store by the guy and the Alicante girl after stopping by today to pay my deposit, so now I know the place to go.

- One problem with the piso: It’s only on the 1.5^th floor, meaning I don’t get to climb stairs regularly to get in and out of my apartment! This is a problem… I live for this. My large calves that don’t fit into most boots will thank me, but my poor little heart will miss its stair workouts.

I will give more info when I have it, but for now, just know that I am to be permanently settled on Saturday morning (or around 4am for most of you reading this, EST).

Tonight I will content myself with yogur, my favorite grocery store food in Spain for some reason, and pan with queso to prepare me for my 4-hour orientation session tomorrow afternoon!

He llegado.

I have arrived.

I landed in the great city of Madrid, España on Wednesday morning, watching American students find their luggage and take a train or a taxi, while I headed to my beloved Metro. My old host family's house is so close to the airport, so despite the 10 minute walk from the Metro to their house with about 50 kilograms of stuff, I didn't have too far to travel.

I am staying at their house while I look for an apartment closer to the bus station from which I will be traveling every day to get to work in Collado Villalba, a town outside the city of Madrid but still within the Comunidad de Madrid. No luck so far on the apartment search, but I am visiting two more today, hopefully making some progress. I visited two yesterday and loved the first one, though the couple that lives there is having a baby at the end of November... probably not something I can easily sleep around or handle... The other place from yesterday called me back today and is willing to give me a 20 euro discount every month because she said she liked me more than the other people who visited. That's nice, but I really like daylight and clean apartments, and that one doesn't really fit the bill...

I will let you know how today goes. At the very least my day will end with a visit with Annalisa, who I am so so glad lives here (we got lunch my first day here and it was wonderful to see her again after almost a year and a half! Too too long.). I also got to see Anne from Carleton Swim and Dive yesterday, which was just great, too! She's such a joy and I am so so jealous that she gets to do the Madrid program. Sure, I did it four years ago, but I would do anything for the excitement and greatness of that program again. I hope I'll get to see her quite a bit more as the fall goes on, before she has to head home for winter in Minnesota... eek! I don't miss that!

Wish me luck looking for the perfect piso!