¡Olé Zoe!

Well apparently I'm just a walking celebrity in Spain these days: 8 year old boys from the colegio are falling madly in love me and cry when I'm not in class, random men on the street give me candy and skin cream to protect my "beautiful skin" (?), my American English accent is apparently just lovely to listen to, the teachers at the school buy me food and gifts and invite me to their houses, I was featured on the front page of the colegio's website, and the other day I came into the classroom to find that my 15 year old students had written ¡Ole Zoe! on the black board. And after about 15 minutes of the kids and the teacher  trying to find a direct translation, we came up with basically "You rock/are awesome/a joy to be around!" At this rate, I don't think I ever want to leave Spain... ;)

La almazara de olivas

Two Fridays ago, I went to a mill up in farm land where they grow and produce olive oil as part of my cooking class. We toured the mill, watched how olives are harvested, the process they go through to become oil, and tasted 6 different types of olive oil. It was fantastic!

Harvesting olives!

Trying the very sour olive juice before it becomes oil

Mi práctica/La misa

My internship is going extremely well. I love all the teachers I work with and my students seem eager to get to know me and learn English from me. I've given two presentations in about 9 different classes so far about Sacramento and about American lifestyle (geared towards American teens). There was some confusion about Sacramento being the capital of California when I showed them a picture of the capitol building. Many students thought it was the White House so I had to explain the state capital system which then brought on some confusion between Washington D.C. and Washington state. So then I had to pull out a map. And finally I mentioned that my dad has worked in the California state capitol building from time to time and that brought on a multitude of questions like, "Is your dad the president?" "Does your dad live in the capitol?" So then I had to talk about Obama and that he and his family live in the White House which lead to questions like, "Do you like Obama?" "Who are you voting for in the election?" It was quite the presentation, I must say. This week I'm presenting about Halloween and I'm organizing a Halloween party for some of the students at the colegio and students from my program. Should be fun!

I also went to mass (for the first time in my life) at a Spanish church two Fridays ago to see some of my students sing. It wasn't really a traditional mass (probably why I actually liked it) but the colegio put it on to honor the visit of Don Bosco (the catholic priest/figure of their school). It was very pretty and I'm glad I went.

¡Granada!

Alhambra from afar (it's huge!)

Last weekend I went to Granada which quite possibly might end up being my favorite Spanish city. It's located in southern Spain in the provence of Andalusia (their accent is the absolute definition of a lisp, too funny). I went with my program and we toured around various churches and saw the infamous Alhambra (incredible!). Granada is home to a lot of Muslim/Arab history which was very evident in the Alhambra and even in the streets of Granada which had a lot of arabic shops and tea places (I had the best tea of my life in Granada, I can't wait to go Morocco and drink some more!). Almost two million people visit the Alhambra every year so it is a huge economic resource for Spain. If you come to Spain, I highly recommend going. Granada is also known for its tapas. Any time you order a drink (whether it be alcoholic or a soda) they bring you a free tapa-- a small plate of food. Granada is also known for flamenco dance, so I went to a flamenco show which was really cool! If I lived in Spain, I would live in Granada.

Getting tea! From L to R: Kiersten, Pepa (program director), her daughter Clara (I give her English lessons), Me, Wanyang, & Andrew

Flamenco!

La Alhambra

La Alhambra

Kiersten y yo, La Alhambra

Paella

Making paella!

Our chef!

On Monday, my cooking class and I made a paella! It was very fun, we all got to take turns cutting vegetables and making meatballs. We also made these fancy salads and got to drink a ridiculous amount of sangria...which I later learned was a lot stronger than I thought it was. My host family found me pretty hilarious later at the dinner table when I started making up words that don't exist...

Elche

On Friday, Kiersten, Andrew and a couple of our Japanese friends went to Elche, a small town 30 minutes away from Alicante, to go to this medieval fair they were hosting and try some tapas because the town has a tapas competition going on right now. It was really cute, and the medieval fair was kind of adorable, everyone was dressed up. It was great.

Tried snails for the first time in my life...

Morocco

On Thursday I head to Sevilla on an overnight bus. And from Sevilla with a guided group, Kiersten and I will be heading to Morocco for the weekend this Friday. I'm very excited, a little bit nervous, but we will be with the group at all times so it should be really great. I'm looking forward to riding a camel! I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!!

Meet Clara, I teach her English!

 Cognados Falsos

If you've taken a Spanish class you know that you shouldn't say "Estoy embarazado" to express that you're embarrassed because it is a false cognate and translates to "I'm pregnant"

Well I found another "oops" false cognate, but from Spanish to English. In Spanish, people say "Estoy constipado" which means "I have a cold" but if a Spaniard were to say "I'm constipated"...well, we all know that doesn't mean you have a cold in English.

Pretty funny :)