Volunteering, non-Thanksgiving and Gingy's grand return

Heyhey, long time no write!
A few weeks ago I found this website on a FB page:

http://www.servethecity.es/

And signed up for one of the projects with Jess. The projects are varied and last a day or just a few hours. Given that I work with kids for a living, I didn't sign up for a social one but for a building project. Beliefs, age, race and occupation aren't important, just that you're willing to volunteer a few hours of your time to a good cause. We went to Getafe for a day to help with building work on a community centre for Roma women. We didn't do a hell of a lot but they were grateful for our presence and help and it was a good opportunity to meet new people and do something proactive and useful with an otherwise dull weekend. The link above is for the Madrid section of the scheme, but Serve the City operates in many cities around the world.
The following week was Thanksgiving and though I had two opportunities to partake in Thanksgivingness, alas this year was the first year I didn't due to the darkness and the cold and the hideously early starts for work finally getting the better of me and keeping me in bed almost all week feeling like death warmed up. Not fun.
However I was well in time for Gingy's grand return! We did the pub quiz on Thursday night as usual, and on Friday we went to the lake and the park where Gingy got into her element and we took some stunning pictures. (Hers are better than mine because she has a posh shiny camera.)

Above: A wild photographing Ginger in her natural habitat.
We also went to the Templo de Debod at sunset (which is so awesome it's recommended on Tourist pamphlets) and I came up with these beauties:

This one looks like the Star Series book cover:

This last one was beautiful anyway but ermagherd look at her hair! The photo doesn't do justice to what orange light does to orange hair lol.
We spent an evening at the Gatoteca, Madrid's cat cafe where city types can go cuddle rescue kitties:

We also went out for a nice meal in Chueca, went on Madrid's Teleferico and the Rastro on Sunday. The kids at school all had exams last week so I didn't do a lot, so it was super sad when on Monday Gingy had to go and I was faced with a week of working doubly hard to make up for teacher's marking exhaustion. But hey, only just over a week now til I see her again! Wooo! Excellent stuff.

Madrid being disgusting, Salamanca, first private class and what happens when you get locked out with everything you need to go anywhere locked in

Over the weekend I took the bus with some friends to Salamanca, a very old and beautiful city. However it snowed/sleeted/ generally soaked us through to the bone and froze us solid.

As we came over the mountain the above view met our eyes and many nervous sideways glances were exchanged. Not nice, but some of my favourite quirks of the city were the astronaut carved into the old cathedral (left) and the miniscule thing that can barely be made out as a frog sitting on a skull that people go absolutely nuts over:

See my fb page for all the photos. I also had my first private English class yesterday, with a woman who's doing a Cambridge course and wants to prepare with listening and speaking practice before she goes to Cambridge for the exam, and the other is a 15 year old who fortunately uses one of the same textbooks in school as I use at work. Hopefully I'll be able to structure my teaching around their individual goals and take on more classes in future.
And oh dear, fiasco of the day, last time I left without my key I had my arse saved by sheer luck but this time, no, no. Dear gods, let the horror of this morning never, ever be repeated. I got locked out of my flat moments after closing the door and realising I´d left my purse in there with my keys, money, travel pass, bank cards, absolutely everything I needed to go anywhere, so I sat in the lobby for an hour waiting for the porter thinking I may well sit there all day, I coudn´t get in, I couldn´t go anywhere, couldn´t get anything to eat. An hour later a wild flatmate appeared, and I said, dude! I rang the doorbell 6 times!´ (I assumed he´d left already) and he informed me he sleeps with his headphones in. Yippee. If he hadn't turned up no doubt I'd still be sitting in that damned lobby. I can´t think of a way round this, if I leave things in different places I´ll lose them, I´ve never ever lost my purse, it´s the first thing I pack! Argh is all I can say after a weekend of SNOW and freezing my balls off with no heating. Then, as luck would have it, when at last Madrid seems to be defrosting is the day my heater arrives. Lol at my life.
Finally allow me to leave you with this image and accompanying quote of Jess for the Shitville the street sweeper strike has left the city in:

Ok so the tourists don't get what's going on the poor dears, but honestly we don't sit neck-high in our own shit voluntarily. But no worries, it's second nature to us, as Jessica commented in Salamanca:

"I'm just gonna stand here by this trash can so I feel right at home."

Right on sis.

November without Bonfire Night or Remembrance Day

*Sigh* well it was all very quiet Tuesday last week, eerily so and today was a normal school day. The clase de Marisol, while trying to teach the topic of Bonfire night, went thus:

Me: Ok, so what was Guy Fawkes trying to do?
Kid: Burn de President!
Me: errr...sort of....

Teacher (after explaining who Guy Fawkes is 6 times): we two teachers are here to help you!
Kid: Sofí, you are ticher?
Me: Errr.... did you think I was here to look pretty?

Kid: What is Gooi Fowkies? (after trying to look up Guy Fawkes in the dictionary)

There is no desk large enough upon which to headdesk.

And in the end they never really got it. Here I sit reading on FB the annual mix of uproar over poppies or lack thereof, and Wilfred Owen poems and beginning to really miss Britain and that surprisingly eventful bridge between Samhain and Yule, something that seems to be lacking here and you don't really miss it 'til you're gone. Still, Nano is keeping me occupied until Gingy makes her grand return, which really is only just around the corner.....

¡Huelga!

Ello ello.
Well the week began with the arrival of my dear orange-haired one, and despite my painfully early starts for work we were able to make the most of the afternoons and evenings with Cien Montaditos (nom), El Prado museum, the Reina Sofia museum (recommended), walks around town and around the Templo de Debod Park, and around the Retiro Park and stuffing our faces in a deserted gay bar in Chueca (we were there about 8ish - people here don't even start to think about dinner until 9.) I took her to the weekly pub quiz and I can't even tell you how we did, in the company of her loveliness I seemed to drink more than usual, and well, it was all a bit fuzzy. But hey, nice photos.

That day was also the day of the teacher's strike, and Gingy being the lefty banner-waving type that she is, bounced up and down with pride at the prospect (indeed, protesting issues that seem to be prominent in most European countries right now.) Class sizes, levels of bureaucracy, level of needless extra work, you name it, the Ministry of Education has ballsed it up, and indeed the topic of conversation among auxiliares rarely strayed from it (we'd be told to turn up on Thursday, assured by many teachers that we'd have classes, only for almost all of us to sit there for a couple hours 'cause no-one had turned up.) But hey, we saw this everywhere:

Go Spanish peoples! You sure know how to strike.
Finally at the end of the week I began Espiral, the Spanish Reclaiming course which was definately very hard to keep up with in Spanish but I think I had the course content nailed more than the rest of them which worked vaguely to my advantage. The weather on Sunday in the park was glorious and it was lovely to do practical work out there. More on this when I do the second weekend in December!

So finally, I leave you with this because it's adorable:

Quote of the week:
Ginger: I think the Gay district should really be in Casa de Campo 
Me: Errr, why?
Ginger: 'Cause it's camp! Campo! Camp!
Me: ........That's a field/countryside sweetheart....

But awww, the orangeness. *Squidge*

Long time no blog!
That's because my life seems to have begun to slip into a dull routine of work Monday to Thursday, quiz night Thursday night, drinking some sort of awful cheap booze with Jessica sometime over the weekend, trying to write, and doing it all over again the next week. Fortunately though I had Thursday off this week because of a local holiday. Woo go Villanueva del Pardillo!
I can't help but feel that school's beginning to feel a little bit like this.

Yes, you tell those little babbling ragamuffins.

I'm not allowed to admit I understand Spanish and must continue to bark at them in English, even at those with a very low level and those actually studying something other than English. Maps of the UK and US abound, ever reinforcing the fact that

all the time, no strange local tongues here, nono. Which is obviously good for them given that learning English may well make or break their little careers, but eh, that's a long way off so instead let's whack each other over the head and throw things at each other, or, if we're feeling well-behaved, gossip about this that or the other individual or compare our weekends.

In other news, we have Internet! Yay! Only took three weeks, my, my, Spain I will not miss your hideous inefficiency. I hear also on the grapevine that a new face will be arriving at the beginning of next month. Huzzah!

In happenings, last weekend I went to the Rastro market, an enormous outdoor flea market that happens every Sunday morning and looks like this:

Last night I went to a Spanish conversation evening in a friendly bar which attracted people of numerous nationalities and was very good fun! But the highlight of this entry is next week, drum roll please:

This gorgeous cartoonified creature will be arriving next week which makes Sophie feel both very excited, but also a lot like this also cartoonified specimen:

XXX

More following the kids

´Cause I totally don´t know my way around school yet, despite the awkwardness of looking like the older ones and occasionally being mistaken for one of them by a teacher not from the English department. Hmm. Yesterday consisted largely of doing a presentation about myself and where I´m from numerous times and being asked all sorts of weird and wonderful questions by the kids (many of which I´m really not supposed to answer), and one adorable little tyke who asked me if I like to have

and I said yes, that´s my favourite thing to do in Spain. At one point I freaked out a bit because we had a class of obnoxious 13 year olds being taken by a cover teacher so neither of us were being taken seriously. Total non-lesson lol. I´m having a better day today, and I´ve been paired up with the art teacher and we´ve been doing geometry which I´ve liked a lot. The kids at least now know all about me and weird goings on in my life and HOOOPEFULLY we´re getting Internet today and some new flatmates too, so I can skype ma Gingy because tis her birthday!!

Happy birthday beautiful lady :D xxxxx

Laugh and the world laughs with you....

Or at you, is how it feels on one's year abroad because really, I didn't get pretty much anything of what you just said, and no snorting and rolling your eyes at me won't make me understand more, it'll just perpetuate my general sense of panic and isolation. Yay. Hopeless lack of understanding aside, here's the lowdown of the last couple of days:
On Thursday night I went to a pub quiz in La Latina run by some American dudes in a cute little Mexican themed bar and hey we came second! Despite some weird freaky questions that surely no-one was going to get...
Yesterday evening I went to the Templo de Debod, since I may as well do touristy things despite living here, and caved in and bought knitting needles and wool (which I didn't bring as I figured I could go without.) Alas I go crazy without knitting. Mmm!

I also did the scary bank openy thing yesterday where I also got eye rolled at but hey, it's done. I've signed up for Spanish Reclaiming training so hey, I'm integrating! Woo!

Today I was happy as I had a super productive day; having no Internet is making me write more so I'm now finally approaching throwing distance of the finish line of Price of Man, but it's also pretty annoying that we won't have Internet til at least Tuesday (I must Skype my Gingy on her birthday!) Sadface. Alas school will get going properly next week so at least I'll be sufficiently distracted :D