London

Though it took two different planes and three take-off attempts to get there, and then a cancelled flight home and an extra night in the Gatwick airport Hilton, I had a great time in London last weekend.

The first plane that was supposed to take us there had a problem, forcing us to turn around 15 minutes into the flight and return to the airport. Many people got off that plane rather than wait to see if the problem could be fixed. Many others stood in the aisle, cigarettes dangling off their bottom lips, waiting to see if we'd be allowed off the plane long enough for a smoke. My friends and I sat in our seats formulating our Plan B for a night out in Barcelona in the event we didn't make it to London. We did make it to London, just six hours late.

Big Ben

We saw many of the big sites in London and I enjoyed hearing English spoken on the street, particularly in British accents. It was strange not having to mentally rehearse what I'd say before speaking to someone and feeling confident that I was definitely speaking in the correct tense.

Westminster Abbey

I did, however, get a little mixed up language-wise when we went to get shawarmas on our way back from the bar Saturday night. I ordered my usual- it's so usual for me to get this in Barcelona that I ordered it in Spanish. My friends kept trying to tell me that the guy behind the counter spoke English and didn't understand me. So ingrained in me is my standard shawarma order, though that I couldn't keep it in my head to just ask in English and our time in the shop was punctuated by my shouts of "Sin picante!" and "Ternera!!" Somehow I ended up with what I was looking for so it was all good.

Buckingham Palace

In Kensington Garden

That wasn't the end of the language confusion. We met some French people who didn't really speak any English. I've been taking French classes but unless they were asking for directions or numbers I couldn't really converse. My friend who is from Argentina tried to make introductions in her limited French. She said "Je m'appelle Sofi." Great. Then she tried to ask their names and said, "Y tu? Como te je m'appelles?" We didn't talk to them for long. I actually spent most of the time in their company sipping water trying to relieve myself of the hiccups. At least you hiccup the same in every language.

Tower Bridge

London is a really cool place and I hope to get back to check it out a little more thoroughly in the future. It's a big city and we definitely didn't get to explore too much in the short time we had, although I am now quite familiar with the layout of Gatwick airport.

Houses of Parliament and a glimpse of the Thames

Kensington Palace


Icy Statue in Trafalgar Square Fountain

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square

Michelle Came to Visit!

I had another great visit from a friend last weekend. My college friend, Michelle came from Thursday to Monday morning. We packed a lot into the short trip and had tons of fun.
She arrived at 8am on Thursday and I was happy to break my rule of not waking up during single digit hours to pick her up at the airport. We pretty much started the sightseeing right away, stopping by Montjuic and the Olympic stadium before I went to teach a lesson and she took a nap.

After my lesson and some lunch we went to see Sagrada Familia then Michelle accompanied me to my classes. She got to see two of my favorite classes. First, the group of 19 kids ages 3-7 who I play games with in a gym. She also got to see my favorite part of that class- the gym teacher.
Next was the seven year old class, where I caught Michelle nodding off once or twice. She assured me that it wasn’t that my teaching was boring, but that she was already pretty clear on what day comes after Saturday.

We went right from there to get some drinks and tapas, where we were treated to complimentary glasses of cava, pretty much just because “it was a beautiful night and we were beautiful American women.” Nice.

Then back to my neighborhood for the Sants bar crawl, which included our regular spot, Ca La Maria. This is a fave thanks to Jordi, the manager, who welcomes new faces by trying to stick his tongue in their mouth. He grows on you.

That night saw the beginning of my signature pose of the weekend. Due to a cold sore that popped up on Wednesday (which I was told wasn’t noticeable but which felt to me like a pulsing, red goiter on my lip, fiendishly winking at anyone who looked at me), I adopted a neck swiveling reflex every time I saw a camera appear. Like here:

Or here:

You’d think I’d forget about after a few pints and just be normal, right?
Nope.

We even tried to tempt the little guy out of hiding with some paella.

He wasn't so easily fooled.

Despite my affliction, we had so much fun, ate great food, saw the sights and got to catch up, which was the best and most important part for me.

Miracle Worker I Am Not

In addition to teaching adult and baby classes at a language school, I also do private, in-house tutoring for individuals. I teach a pair of super-smart brothers, and an Italian woman who’s English is probably better than mine. And then there's Aleix. Sweet, awkward, slow Aleix.

Aleix is 14 years old and has been studying English since he was about six but it seems the language has just never clicked for him. His pronunciation is almost as good as most of my four year olds.

So I was really excited last week when his parents told me that he'd gotten back the first English exam he's taken since I started working with him and his grade was a big improvement over past tests. I was excited until this week, when his mother showed me the exam and I saw that his grade was a 10.5 out of 30. "What-uh, what were your grades before, Aleix?" I asked. "Umm, ford o fibe," he answered.

A big part of the problem is that the tests are all translation, and his spelling is horrible. The teacher gives them a sentence in Catalan and they write it in English- not really the best way to learn. One of the sentences he showed me that he'd translated read as follows (this is not exaggerated):

What hai cat mi her the peoples make funni at mi.

I can't speak or really read Catalan to see what the original phrase was, so it took us about seven minutes to realize that the sentence was:

When I cut my hair people made fun of me.

In another section he had to translate individual words. There was one we had trouble figuring out, he's spelled it:

Desenvolupeitit

Major points for anyone who figures it out before I tell you....

...still not sure?...

....Developed

Clearly my work here is not done.

40 Days and 40 Nights

So, I realized that today was Fat Tuesday and that if I was going to give something up for Lent, I had better decide pretty quickly what that would be.

For the past five years or so I've consistantly given up chocolate, which is difficult, but I get through. I decided this year that I'm going to give up chocolate and bread. This may prove to be pretty difficult seeing as:

1) Eating is one of my favorite things to do and these are two of my favorite things to eat

2) I live in a place where there is a bakery on every corner selling fresh baked bread and delicious chocolate filled pastries

3) My roommate works in one of said bakeries and has access to a constant (free) supply of said bread and chocolate filled pastries

However, seeing as the most difficult part of my life these days is making sure I wake up early enough to get a walk in before going to work at 4pm, I figured I could use a challenge.

Also I've caught a few glimpses of myself lately that make me wanna vom.

Friday Night Line Up

Some random interactions with people from yesterday:

I was sitting down on the metro ride home from work. To my right sat a disheveled, sickly looking girl determinedly munching her way through an entire sleeve of Chips Ahoy.

To my left was a couple standing up and leaning against the side of my seat. There were three things that bothered me about them:
- The guy was carrying the girl's purse, not just holding it for her while she did something, he
was straight up carrying it all around
- The girl was wearing a Canadian tuxedo and the jacket had an elastic band around the
bottom
- While simultaneously trying to 1) keep his balance 2) hold the purse and 3) make out with
his girlfriend, the guy almost elbowed me in the eye socket about seven times

This experience was later negated when I met some German guys at a bar. One of them continually pointed out that Germans are not always serious and that they "love to have fun and make party all the times." This was emphasized by a little dance move reminiscent of John Candy's "Polka Twist" in Home Alone.

I told him I could not stay out very late because I had to work in the morning. He asked "which o'clock" I had to wake up at. I told him 8 and he said that meant I could make party until 5.

I made party until 3:30 but then I had to pack it in.

This Week in Teaching

It was an interesting week teaching English to the people of Spain. This week:

- A four year old slyly looked down my shirt while I was kneeling in front of the group and then turned to one of the other boys and told him loudly that he could see "las tetas"

- I had a spit ball land on my pant leg during my already tense theater class. If those kids didn't know the phrase "Are you kidding me!?" before, they do now

- During a music-based lesson, one student performed all the choreography to "Thriller" which segued into me explaining what the song "Billie Jean" was about through a series of stick figure drawings on the black board

- An adult student asked me what the expression was for when a man was trying to have sex with a woman. I mentally filed through about fifteen different possibilities and how to explain them before I realized the one he was looking for was "to hit on"and breathed a sigh of relief

Bum Bum Bum Ba Da Bum Bum

I have both "Under Pressure" by Queen and "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice in my iTunes. It's always a weird moment when I have iTunes on shuffle and I'm in another part of the apartment so for the first couple notes of the bass riff I can't tell which song it is.

I always stop whatever I'm doing, and swivel my head in the direction of the computer, like a hunting dog picking up a scent, with the urge to run over and assess the situation.

.

I usually stay still, though and wait it out for the two to three seconds it takes to realize which song is playing. You know, the tell tale "tsch" after the "bum bum bum ba da bum bum" that so sets Ice Ice Baby apart.

If it turns out to be Under Pressure I go about my business, if it is Ice Ice Baby, I'll most likely go change the song. For some reason, though, I don't remove it from my library. I think I like that it keeps me on my toes. Although I'm not entirely sure how it got there in the first place. I can't imagine any time in my life when I'd spend $.99 to purchase it...