aventuras de alyssa

First day at school today! They call schools “colegios”! I met with Ana Maria, the school coordinator and she gave me my schedule. I have third grade through sixth grade English classes, which are mainly with one teacher named Luis. I also have Spanish classes that I’m sitting in on with a third grade class and a very nice teacher named Ana (there are a LOT of Anas) in order to improve my Spanish. We’ll see how that goes – not sure what they learn in third grade Spanish!

There’s a break in the middle of the day where the teachers gather in the physical therapist’s room to have coffee and snacks. There’s a physical therapist, speech therapist, and nurse at the school for the students with special needs. They were very excited to hear that my mom works with children in wheelchairs, like a few of the students at the school, and that my sister is studying PT and that half my family is PT’s! There are a few deaf students as well, so the speech therapist (Monika) was teaching me that sign language is not the same between Spain and the USA (which surprised me). They also have a photo booklet of the entire staff with corresponding signs that represent their personalities. Monika said that we have to figure out one for me!

I went to two classes today, since it was just my first day, and the students were hysterical. Both classes immediately asked how old I was, my favorite food, color, and animal. The second class went for the personal questions and asked if I had children, had a boyfriend, and if I was rich or poor. Luis helped me deflect the last one! I taught them a bit about St. Patrick’s Day and tomorrow I’m going to teach them the Unicorn song!! 🙂

I got home from school completely exhausted from meeting so many students & teachers (the teachers only speak to me in Spanish). Took a little siesta and Rosa made me pasta for lunch, which was delicious. I spent some time creating worksheets for the Unicorn song and a presentation about me, NJ, and NYC. Juanjo, Rosa, and I went to Valladolid (the city) because they had an appointment with their lawyer and I had an hour’s worth of free time to explore. I was a bit familiar with the area since we were there on Monday with the CIEE group. I’ve added photos to a new page in the blog because there are a lot! I found the tourism center, got a map, and saw the beautiful architecture that Valladolid has. It was nice to walk around and explore and I shockingly didn’t get lost!

Dinner was ham sandwiches at 10 pm! I’ve been doing well with the later meal times, which is a relief – I usually eat lunch at 11:30 am and we don’t eat lunch until 2 pm here. I had some great conversations with Juanjo and Rosa about going to the movies and celebrating American holidays, specifically Thanksgiving and how we celebrate Easter, since it’s much different in Spain. I need to brush up on my verb conjugations, but I think we’re getting along quite nicely with their limited English and my broken Spanish!

Adios, hasta mañana!