My year in Lesson Plan format

As a primary education major, I have written countless lesson plans, always being sure to closely follow the model given to me by SUNY Cortland.

Well if my life were a lesson plan, it would look something like this:

Objectives:  All Fulbrighters will be able to (AFWBAT):
Survive in Europe, specifically in Spain for 1 year (or 10 months)
Develop independence from anything American. This independence may or may not hinder their social abilities
Accomplish grown-up things in a foreign language such as open a bank account, rent an apartment, buy a cell phone, buy internet and avoid being deported
Pretend they don't speak Spanish when at school
Teach students some English. How much will vary upon age group and other factors.
Travel to other foreign countries to discover more culture and language
Improve their Spanish vocbulary, and perhaps vocabulary in other languages as well
Make friends from all over Europe

Introduction: Explain to Chelsea that Congratulations! She won a Fulbright Grant! She will be living in Valencia, Spain for 10 months and teaching English in a primary school in a town called Alfara de Patriarca. Now book a flight, pack life into 2 suitcases, and meet us in Madrid on September 5th 2010. But before they can come they must get a Visa and get lots of certificates and pay lots of money for a sticker in her passport (2 months duration)

Demonstration: At the Fulbright meeting, give all Fulbrighters a little folder with all the information they'll ever need about the program. Provide them with seminars about Spanish banking, finding housing, life in Spain, the importance of being a Fulbrighter, etc. Supply them with people to network with and contact information of important people (3 days)

Group Activity: Let Fulbrighters run around Madrid and mingle with each other for a few days. Then break them off into small groups. Send a group of 10 to Valencia, then of those 10,  send four to search for a Piso and live together for 10 months. They must not cry, get lost, or get mugged. They must learn to navigate the city together and open bank accounts, get metro passes, young peoples cards, cell phones,  and internet access. And make friends. (1 week)

Individual Activity: Each Fulbrighter will then begin working at their school. Their responsibilities will vary depending upon their placement. For example, Chelsea will work in a primary school with students ages 4- 12. She will also assist in Physical Education and Arts and Crafts. She will also go on cultural field trips with the students and organize other activities or side projects such as a Cheerleading team.
Fulbrighters will also have the opportunity to travel throughout Spain and Europe. They may only take 30 days outside of Spain. But who is counting?

Closing Activity: At the end of June, they will say goodbye to their students and colleagues, and make promises to see them soon and to keep in touch.
They will also bid farewell to a lot of friends they have made throughout the year including small group members, large group members, side job families, and random friends they made in the city.

Transition: They will then be free to do what they want beginning more or less June 24th. Some will pick up where they left off in America. others may start new exciting lives in America. Some will go onto live in different countries. Some will stay put

For instance, Chelsea will be living in Valencia until the end of July. She will visit cities such as Barcelona, Tarragona, Castellon and other places that may come up. She will try to find new hobbies to keep her busy. Then she will go to Madrid to visit her NY friends, then together they will go to San Sebastian. On August 4th she will fly to Venice to start her Tour de Italia until August 14th when she flies home to New York...
But not for long.

Introduction to Lesson 2: On September 14th, Chelsea will say her goodbyes to America once again. She will arrive in Madrid, Spain on September 15th where she will start all over again. She must build a new life in Madrid where she must find a piso, renew her residency card, get a metro card, and work at a new school. She will be working at a Primary School in Coslada, very close to Madrid. Once settled in Madrid, she will be able to go visit her old life in Valencia, and to collect her belongings she is leaving at her Spanish families home.

Who knows what is to come next year?

la Noche de San Juan

Thursday, June 23rd was a special night here in Spain and especially the Comunidad Valenciana. It was La Noche de San Juan, also known as the shortest night of the year. I went to finally visit my habibi Amber in Castellón, a 1 hour train ride north from Valencia!

To me this was very interesting because in the USA we always say June 21st is "the longest day of the year" but here in Spain, its all about the night life.
So this night is super divertida! Everyone gathers down at the beach (some carrying more bags than others) for a picnic and botellon. Once the sun is set, the hogueras (bonfires) commence along with traditions:
1) Write down all the bad things in your life or in the world, and throw them into the fire
2) Jump over the fire for good luck
3) Go into the sea at midnight and jump over 12 waves and make a wish on your 12th wave
4) Ive also heard of wearing a crown made of certain flowers that only bloom this week and then burn it for good luck
5) Correfoc- run with fire!

warming up around the fire after the good luck dip in the mediterranean 

I opted to not jump over the fire for safety reasons! But I did go into the sea! At first, I swore I would only go up to my knees, but I changed my mind at the last moment when the sea was filled with people and the fireworks commenced and before I knew it, waves were crashing over my head!

After the fireworks, we dried off and then... the highlight of my night (ok not really but it was still exciting)

Where there are fires and americans... there will be S'MORES! For those who do not know what a smore is, it is when you roast a marshmellow over the fire, and once it is ooey gooey, you slide it between two graham crackers and a piece or 4 of chocolate. 

So we started the Secret S'more Society at an abandoned fire and made our tummies really really really happy =)

You can never be over-prepared with supplies

sidenote: I was warned to be careful of ladrones (thieves) and that "you will loose your shoes! everyone does" but we came home with everything we brought with us! even though i did not bring my camera or any thing of value besides myself! Successful night if i do say so myself!

Clases Particulares

It started with a job... and ended with two families.

Being that Fulbright only requires we work 16 hours a week, I knew immediately I would need something more to fill my time,  I am not the type of person to sit around all day doing nothing, being a couch potato (ok, maybe i can do that once or twice here or there, but by day 2 I develop cabin fever!)

I took up clases particulares, or better known as tutoring. I started with a family of two girls, Laura (now age 9) and Blanca (now age 4) The two girls attend a Bilingual school, so Laura could carry out conversations with me, but Blanca not so much.

My tutoring entailed working with weekly spelling words, grammar, and science. It also included playing teacher, dancing, singing, magic shows and other assorted activities.

By December, I had picked up a second family of 3 Boys: Borja (11) Mauro (9) and Carlos (4). The two families are very close and they decided to share me.

I had to say goodbye to what are now known as "my kids" and I was really sad to do so. Both families have integrated me into their family and made me feel like one of their own. I loved those kids, and I will miss them a lot (even though I came home with scratches and pulled hair, and also a headache and maybe some grey hairs) but all the good that came out of my time with them far outweighs the bad.

I hope I can continue to see the children while I am here in Valencia this summer, and Spain for however long that may be...

Pen Friends

This year my students had the opportunity to be pen pals with students in New York thanks to my 3rd grade teacher: Mrs Flynn. This year she was teaching 6th grade- the perfect age to be friends with my little spaniards. Her 29 students were divided up between my 7 sixth graders and 16 fifth graders, and  7 lucky students had 2 pen pals.

My students had a golden opportunity to learn about another culture and to practice their English. Some cultural differences brought up:
1) Calling your teacher by their first name
2) Where does your dad live if he doesn't live in your house?
3) Why does she only have a mom?
4) It snows in New York, not in Valencia
5) In Valencia, students go home for lunch
6) Valencians eat rabbit
7) Futbol/Soccer

Some similarities:
1) Everyone likes Pizza and Ice cream
2) Most students dislike Math
3)Physical education is the favorite class
4) Video games RULE
5)Kids in both countries speak Spanish

I really enjoyed helping my students with the letters, and reading the responses. A lot of them made me laugh and Im glad to have given my students the opportunity to write to children on the other side of the world. They are so excited about their new friends in New York!

Here is a video we all worked on to tell our new New York friends about their school, their culture, and their language!

La Via Churra and other Valencian lessons

Hanging out with Valencia's Official Fulbright Liaison, Rubén is always a culturally informative one.  It is always a day filled with Spanish culture, history, vocabulary, and unfortunately... grammar.

Rubén urged me this weekend, to rent a bike from Do You Bike. It was a pretty good deal- 15 euros for 24 hours on a weekend, and a 50 euro refundable deposit. My only complaint is the seat.... next time i'll try to rent or buy or borrow a padded seat cover so that my culo doesn't go through that torture again.

So after lugging my new rental up and down my narrow piso stairs, applying my spf 30, and actually eating breakfast for once, I was ready for an excursion through la famosa Huerta through the norther fields of Valencia at 9am sharp!

Ruben showed me this AWESOME trail. It used to be a railway route from the city of Valencia, up north in order to transfer goods. Thanks to modern technology and trucks, this train route is no longer needed. As a result, the generalitat has removed the rails but paved over the same route to make a bicycle lane! Its called  La via churra or Xurra in Valenciá.  

We rode through lots of fields and saw country houses surrounded by pines and palms, with fields of Nisperos, watermelon, oranges, roses, lettuce, and of course: Chufa. This lead to an overview of how to make Horchata (which I will be attempting soon) and about the canals that flow through la Huerta that can be opened and closed and there are even weekly or monthly meetings to discuss the distribution!

 By the time we were only 1/3 through our adventure, we had a slight pause due to a non-typical Valencian summer rain.  We took cover for about 20 minutes until the rain passed while exchanging lessons in culture.

After the rain passed, we continued on La Xurra and saw an old Barraca, the original Valencian huerta style house with the thatched roof accompanied by the cross on top to profess Christianity.

Later, we took a new route along a Barranco (river/canal) that lead to the sea. The area reminded me like the Moriches inlet, with a narrow coastline, fisherman, and jetties.

Then we ventured over to the Ermita, a small church built to remember a Miracle that happened back in the 1300's. First we tried to guess the miracle. We decided from the picture "ok, no fish for a really long time, then one day, lots of fish!" Wrong.
 As we learned, a priest was going to travel to a nearby town to give communion to a sick man. However, when he tried to cross the little river up north, the host was lost in the water. However, the miracle of this tale is that the host traveled downstream, in the mouth of fish, and was placed in the priests chalice. Boy were we wrong!

After learning about the milagro, we ventured along the coast (where i learned the term for picnic area, merendero coming from merendar- to have an afternoon tea/snack- but you can merendar at a merendero any time of day!)

After 4 hours of activity, I returned my bike into the center of the city, but not without more free history lessons! I got to see the alter that was built for the first mass after King Jaime conquered Valencia- which later the Cathedral was built around! Cool! It is RIGHT there but I would have never have stopped to peer in this little window door without our Liaison!

Can't wait for another culturally rich day trip with Rubén!

PS none of these photos are mine, i was too lazy to take out my camera!

Ode to Code...(y)

Today was a sad day. It was a day of despididas. The first to go, was one of my best friends here, Cody.
I met Cody back in January at the Portland Ale House, the American bar here in Valencia (which I LOVE, and probably only thanks to this clown)
I happened to sit next to cody at the bar during the NFL playoffs and struck up conversation. The rest is history.
It began with meeting up at a well known spot near his piso, and near where I tutor, at the FOLDER store. Then it turned into semi weekly coffees at the Cruz Blanca (still not sure if thats really the name)

Our knowledge of Folder is the reason we're friends

Every morning when I woke up, I was bid good morning via Gchat (since the poor guy was already at work!) and we would meet regularly for a drink or a night on the town.
Cody left today to return to Virginia to go take another stab at America. Good Luck in the real world Cody, Ill be here in Spain when you're ready to come back! You were a great friend and we had great times together. I will really miss you!

My favorite memories of Cody:
-The time Omar Cook bought us shots
-Superhero rolls


-You're overly large wallet with hilarious pictures inside
-Coffee at cruz blanca
-The time you burnt my food making chicken wings
-Bog Roll
-Cooking class and especially finishing my leftovers!
-Eating gross sausage sandwiches during fallas

-Ordering Nachos from the nacho libre burrito place... and ordering EVERYTHING on them
-The time you made me go into that special "club" in Malta, and I walked directly out!
-watching you drink all those vodka redbull pitchers

-The time you waved to us from inside a nice luxurious car as i was boarding a sticky old bus in Malta... then drove away
-Bici-ing around Valencia and almost getting me killed
-Your nomadic tendencies
-L'umbracle, I wouldn't have gone without you!
-The time you stepped over a kid, finally!

I'll always be your Sugarplum
<3

p.s. im keeping your knives ;)  bromaaaa

¡Puc parlar un poquet Valenciá!

I went to link this post back to a previous post... but then I realized Ive never posted about Valenciano! How is that possible!?!?!

Well for those who dont know, Valenciano is the official language of the Province of Valencia. It is a mix between castellano (spanish) and French. There are also hints of italian and even english! Actually, Ive decided that if you can speak Valencian, you can probably speak 5 other languages (excluding English)

However; Valencian is not a recognized language by Spain. It fits into the category of Catalan, but Valencians and Catalans disagree (stubborn) and are convinced they are entirely different and unique! (even thought they can understand each other)
Some sensible people will say "yeah, they're they same, who are we kidding!"

my favorite Valencian sign!

In my school, Valencian is the main language used. Some students only learn Castellano in school, and never use it at home. I can also tell when a students home language is Castellano because they use it in impromptu situations where they use their natural reactions or when asking questions in class.

I do pretty well understanding basic Valenciano. I do miss one or two words here and there, which eventually leads me to zone out and take off into mental air space.

Metro signs that teach me Valenciano

But I have picked up some Valenciano, and not completely on purpose! Yes, I  have taken perhaps 3 or 4 classes and even bought the required text book, however, I soon quit due to a questionably crazy professor.
In class I learned: "Bon dia! Jo soc Chelsea. Tinc vinte quart anys. Traballe en un colegi public. Visc en Benimaclet. Soc america. Puc parlar un poquet Valenciá.

But I've also picked it up just by being in class with my students, or reading signs around the city.  Sometimes I use Valenciano on accident! I confuse it with my beloved Castellano
Por ejemplo (warning-  I can NOT spell in Valenciano, this is just a guess!)
Buenos dias- Bon dia
cinco años- cinc anys
donde vamos?-adon anem?
todo- tot
complicado-complicat
comunidad- comunitat
playa- platja
por favor- per favor
adios- adeau
puente- pont
mas o menos- mes o mens
bien- bé
tambien- tambén
calle- carrer
gracias- gracies
acietunas- olives (olives!)
jarra- pitcher (pitcher!)
tuyo- teu
siempre-sempre
chico- xiq (x=ch)
chica- xiquet
horchata-orxata
amigo- amic
poquito- poquet

for the most part, whenever a castellano word ends in ado, the valencians dont have time for all that pronunciation and change it to tat.

Being somewhat "submerged" in my valencian classroom helped me to pick up enough to have a pretend conversation with nora here and there. Now I see how much one really can learn from submersion, I'm a believer!!!

The Mystery of Valencian Nightlife

Last night the girls and I and some other randoms finally made it out to L'Umbracle, Valencia's most popular discoteca. It is located in the City of Arts and Sciences, and is only open in the warm summer months. Why? Because the whole thing is an outdoor terraza! There is another part below, MYA which I hear only plays techno headache music.

But L'Umbracle is located next to the dinosaur exhibit, and it is pretty awesome inside.

Before hand we caught drinks and supported a good cause at my favorite bar, The Portland Ale House. They were having a Pink party to raise money and awareness for Breast Cancer. So everyone was decked out in pink clothing, accessories, and pink drinks!

Anyway, when we entered L'Umbracle at the early hour 145 am, it was not very crowded. The only people there were the people who were using the same passes at us that was free entry until 2 am. (Normally entry is 15 euros which includes a drink).

The club played some great music. But after going out a few nights here and there, I've noticed something strange about Valencian nightlife. No one dances!  Everyone just kind of stands around chatting over the music. Interesting. I wanna dance!

So we Americans and other Internationals dance. We are quite the show, especially the Americans with out interesting style of dance moves.

My other favorite part dancing in Valencian bars, is noticing how little English people know. When a song in english says something like "I throw my hands up in the air sometimes" you can look around, and see small clusters of dancers dancing with their hands flailing wildly in the air.... but only a a few....
Then the song comes on with the words "la mano arriba" (the hand up) and every spaniard throws their one arm up in the air and then they dar una vuelta (turn around)

My friend joked today that it would be a good way to find new friends in Valencia, just look for people with their arms up in the air during the english songs that call for your hands in the air!

When we finally left the disco at about 445 in the morning, the Line was out the door to get in! Well, there really isn't a door, but there was a line to get in! I don't know how these spaniards do it!

Nora and I ready to dance!

cody and I just entering L'Umbracle

Built up Anticipation, Over in the blink of an eye

Ever since Octoberish, I have had a countdown on my Mac's dashboard. Counting down the days until my Parents come to visit! The countdown started at about 265 days or something ridiculous that it might as well have said NEVER, but slowly but surely, I watched that daunting little calendars number decrease... 212 days, 175 days, 122, 99, 82, 45, 30, 14, 1... and before I knew it, the calendar was saying "8 days since Parents visit!" 

I had a lot of time to build up anxiety and anticipation for my parents visit. There was so much to look forward to besides the fact that my parents were coming to visit me after my short 6 day visit in December.

 The reason I was MOST excited was because it was their first time out of the country (because really, Canada doesn't count)

The second reason I was super excited, was because I could not wait for them to see WHY I'm here and WHY I don't want to go home! I was confident that they would fall in love with Spain just like I did. I was also confident they would buy property while they were here, but I was not so on point with that one... but there's always next year!

Some personal highlights from my parents trip:

-Welcome wagon bocadillos

-Visiting my school and watching my kids perform an English play... and they also received a roar of applause and cheers from my students just for being present! 

-Tapas at las cuevas

-Absorbent amounts of Sangria and wine

-Witnessing my mother witness a bullfight at Las Ventas in Madrid... and staying longer than I did my first time

-My dad buying, wearing, and loving a Murse (man purse)

-Escargot and french onion soup in Paris

-Going up the eiffel tower

-Watching French movies in our GREAT B&B in Paris while my mom rubbed my feet and back

-Drinking wine from water bottles throughout the day... it runs in the fam

-Not getting lost in ANY city

-Pink Champagne truffles from Harrods

- Perfect lunch at Maria Jose's... American fam meets spanish fam

-Beautiful beach day

-Cooking for my parents again

-Nightly Paseos through Valencia

-My parents saying Madrid was one of their favorite cities, and Spain is their favorite country

-Paella in the Park

-Did I mention the wine? (14-17 wine corks were saved... this does not include sangria)

-Having my family back

Unfortunately, reflecting the day of their departure (I bid them a teary eyed farewell last night) I woke up today and It felt like a dream. It all happened so fast, I can't believe that 2 weeks has passed!

I am a little heartbroken, ok A LOT heartbroken and I kind of don't know what to do with my days. However, something to ease the pain: I booked a flight home August 14th-September 14th!