Excursión

This morning when my carpool picked me up, she says "do you know, that we are all leaving school today for an Excursión?"
No, no i did not know. Im glad im well informed around here!

At first I was kind of ticked. I mean, I was not feeling well today, and I kind of just wanted to have an easy day, and go home on time.

Well, this excursión (field trip) turned out to be pretty sweet! We went to IVAM- Valencia's Museum of Modern Art.

So I spent the first half hour of the morning with the angel on earth, Maria Jose who spent her time on the phone with La Aduana (customs) trying to rescue my package my mom sent me in october! (possible future blog topic)

Then we took a bus to the museum. Not just any bus... a COACH bus no less. Riding in style

We got there, and typical Spanish students, do you know what they do first?....Whip out those bocadillos baby!

they wish they were as cool as me and could ride bici's all day!

So after the teachers were finished tomando un café (having a coffee) We proceeded to the project! We went into this super cool room, inspired by Felix Candela, a Spanish Architect who designed the beautiful Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias here in Valencia. They had a whole exhibit of his life's work. Now, I did not learn much about his style of architecture because the presentation was all in Valenciano, but I got the gist of things! Candela was born in Madrid in 1900 (around there) and he was a super-athlete but because of his views and because he was an intellectual, he was driven out of Spain by the republicans during the Civil war in the 30's and 40's and ended up in a concentration camp in France.
Afterwords, he was welcomed to Mexico, where he designed many amazing structures like churches and sports complexes. He never moved back to Spain, but he did come back to design great architecture like that in Valencia (he was over 80 years old!). He ended up marrying an American and living in the States until he died in the late 90's in North Carolina.

in this cool room... those lines are ropes, and the room had blacklights!

Later, we got to be little architects ourselves and make our own models like Candela. Mine ended up being quite triste (sad) and I needed to be helped I think more than the first graders! The stapler really got me confused. But here is my work of art!

But later, the best part of the field trip was what occurred next: A train of back massages!!! You know I hopped on the back of that right away! And sweet Gabi (green shirt) volunteered to give me a back massage like a sweetheart. He is from Romania and all he can say to me is "Chelseeeeaaa" and "ZEEEEEE!!" like the letter in the alphabet, because students here are taught British English, and our Z is pronounced ZET... crazy brits!

After the field trip (which i was successful in doing nothing all day)... I even got to BICI back home through parque Turia. I know all my students were so jealous watching me ride off into the sun!

**Funny translated quote**
(Museum man): What is an architect? what does he do?
(Joaquin in first grade): He's the guy who digs for buried treasure!