Welcome to Socuellamos!

Greetings to everyone from Espaňa! Hopefully “everyone” consists of more than just my creepy and weirdly appealing stalkers. Hopefully all of you can make some time to read my humble blog every so often. Soooooo, I’ve been in Socuellamos, the name of my town in the province of Ciudad Real, Spain, for about a week and a half now, and I am finally settled enough (mostly) to sit down and write my first entry. And now that it’s been so long, I have no idea what to write (so muchhhhh)! I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

Getting here:

After a VERY long and uncomfortable flight, I finally arrived in Madrid at 7am on Saturday morning (11/6th). As a side-note, I had a two-hour layover in Philadelphia in which I ate airport cheesesteak. Does that count??? I mean it was my first time in Philly and I didn’t even leave the airport =0 Let’s just say it counts. My first thought as I got off the plane: Well, I’m here. Why am I not more impressed? I should be astounded, ecstatic, jumping for joy and disbelief! But I wasn’t. It felt so commonplace. Like I could still be in a dream and wake up at any moment, in my bed safe at home. I actually wondered if I would be disappointed or relieved if that happened =/ I wish I had taken more time to say good-bye to my parents. BUT, now that I’ve been here longer and that strange wave of home-sickness has washed away (it actually lasted the whole first weekend, up until the moment I started work at my school), I can say that I am incredibly happy to be here and know I did the right thing!

After a long day of taxis, trains, and LOTS of waiting (six hours at the train station!), I arrived in Socuéllamos at 4pm, EXHAUSTED. The first thing I did was ask for the nearest hostel, and upon arrival I knocked out on the bed. I didn’t wake up till next morning at about 8am. After a shower, a short walk around town, and a breakfast of a donut and hot chocolate (the hot chocolate is very different to the hot chocolate we’re used to. It has the consistency and delicious taste of a melted Hershey’s bar), I went back to my room and slept from 11am to about 6pm. For dinner that night (my first in Spain), I had a famous bocadillo de jamon. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night even though I had my first day of school the next morning. But this worked out perfectly because I was already sleepy by 10pm Monday night, and my jetlag quietly resolved itself.

Random coolness:

1. Smoking vestibules at the Madrid airport! Indoors! These are separate compartments where people can go in and have a cigarette or two. How trippy! So far I haven’t run across them anywhere else, but that’s only because smoking indoors is generally legal in Spain (that is, until the new law forbidding it takes effect in January), and this is particularly evident in bars.

2. Many of you asked me about Spain’s famous ham. And let me tell you: if you’ve ever had what we in the US call prosciutto, then you’ve tried Spanish ham. I was shocked. Yes, I know: prosciutto is the Italian word for ham, but I didn’t expect Spain’s famous ham to be Italy’s ham as well. But it’s good, so hey…

My colegio:

My center is called CEIP Secciones Bilingües El Coso. It is a preschool and elementary (primary) bilingual school. With only about 180 students and about 20 faculty and staff, this is a very tiny school and the smallest in Socuéllamos. This is a good thing because it’s going to be easier to get to know the kids, I’m going to work with all of the classes, and the faculty is very tight-knit. The staff are also all very nice and inviting. My first day there, everyone was super nice about my being A WHOLE MONTH LATE, everyone was falling over themselves to see what they could do to help my housing situation (more about that later), and in general very attentive to me. Because Monday are a long day at my school (a 2-4pm break for lunch after classes end followed by meetings and conferences from 4 to 7), everyone as a group generally goes out to lunch together. I went out with them and had my first real Spanish meal.

Eating in Spain:

When you’re going out for a full-fledged meal and not just tapas, lunch and dinner in La Mancha (the region where Socuellamos is located) consists of four courses: salad, first dish, second dish, and dessert or coffee or both. Salads are generally shared by three or four persons. Nothing special: lettuce, tomato, onions, corn, olives, tuna, oil and vinegar. The first and second dishes both consist of typical Spanish entrees and what one person has for the first dish another may have for the second dish. No big difference. On that first Monday with my colleagues I had chicken paella for my first dish. For my second dish, I had sausages with French fries. Sooooo filling! Throughout all of this, the normal drink is a glass of white or red wine. Here in Socuéllamos, they have an inclination for the locally produced brands. Can I just say… STRONG. But it’s offset by the sparkling water that one typically adds to it. Rather than dessert, I went for a café con leche. After dessert, even at lunch it’s normal for everyone to take a chupito, a shot of some kind of liqueur. That day the group opted for crema de oruja, a kind of caramel-vodka tasting creamy drink. I’ve had dessert after all my other meals. I’ve found that it’s almost obligatory.

My apartment:

Like I said, almost everybody at my school was falling over themselves to help me find a place to live. The reason they were so worried was that because I arrived in town so late, it would be difficult for me to find a cheap, shared piso to live in. Randomly, on my first Tuesday here, via the other Auxiliaries in town I met this guy- Jesus- who happened to have a friend- Teodora- who had an empty bedroom in her piso. The next day I went to see the place. Picture a SPACIOUS, furnished bedroom; very large kitchen, dining and living rooms; MY OWN BATHROOM; centrally located near everything and a five-minute walk from my school; all for only 150 Euros a month. A steal! I loved it instantly and moved in that very night. My new roommate Teodora, from Bulgaria,, was an Auxiliary last year and does similar work this year. I am so excited to living with her this year. As a matter of fact, on my first weekend living with Teodora I met a bunch of her friends and spent and entire weekend of long and crazy partyyyy. But that deserves its own entry…

Well, sorry for the longgggggggg piece. I hope most of you read sparingly, and if you read the whole thing: Thanks!!! You’re a doll =D But my very first blog entry in Spain required a lot of information (trust me, there was a lot of filtering!). Anyway, I plan on writing soon about the night life in Socuellamos and, more importantly, about some of my experiences in the classroom. Stay tuned (Pretty Pleaseeee!).