Lloyd

Well, it's time for another insightful, funny, and witty blog post... let's see if I can deliver. Note: this may veer toward the sentimental because Katie is watching "It's a Wonderful Life", but I promise to try my best to keep this from happening.

It's Christmas day 2010. Katie and I opened our presents this morning. I got some shoes, a watch, a sweatshirt, and another shirt. Katie got a nose piercing (in gift certificate form), a hat, gloves, socks, and a PATA! A pata is an animal leg, not to be continued with a human leg, which is a pierna. Over here in spain they love to eat ham. More specifically they love to eat Jamon Iberico. They slice really thin pieces off directly off the leg, and they're delicious! I need a sharper knife though because I butchered it this morning...and not in the proper way.

Christmas has been good so far. Katie has transcended beyond her normal holiday anxiety. She hates buying Christmas presents because she is worried that people won't like them! But I like everything present she's ever given me (wink wink). It's doesn't really feel like Christmas though. There is no snow and It's really beautiful outside, which i spose isn't all bad.

I think it's time that I should tell you about all of the wonderful people that we've met here. But they're so few, so I'll just tell you about all our friends! Let's see, what order to go in... chronologically, topically... I think I'll go by stature, but bottom up. Shortest to tallest. Allow me to introduce you to Emily Lloyd Hamilton.

When we arrived at our school for the first day we met the other full time assistant. A bright eyed little ray of sunshine from a tiny speck of land called Whales. For those of you in Nebraska scratching your heads, Whales is basically England. They carved out a little chunk of that Island for themselves and I think they may even have a representative in British Parliament. Emily hails from a town called Swansea (Pronounced Swanzi - lol). She speaks with a very funny accent is very fond of using the word "loads". Loads of this, loads of that. She is 21 years old and has a boyfriend named Jim (James in Whales, but we call him Jim). Jim plays american football for his University team so we have been trying to explain the game to Emily with limited success. She asks questions like "when do they do the thing where they throw the ball between their legs?" It's going to be a long and laborious process...

I am going to have to lump the rest of our church friends into one. Warren, Karen, Andrew, Andrea, Brian, Kate, and Simon. Simon is the lone single man of the group. Now, I'm not going to blame this on his Northern Irish heritage... but... FYI it is not polite to refer to the drink an "Irish Car Bomb" in the company of the Irish OR the Northern Irish. Surprisingly they have another name for it. Anyway, Simon teaches PE at the American School here and is the leader of our house group. He's a good guy and has exactly one good joke. It goes like this. "Have you heard about that stalker that stabs and kills those celebrity women from romantic comedies? Like that one lady, Reece......" and then you say "Witherspoon", and he says "no, it was with a knife." ha ha. Katie loved it.

Warren and Karen. Warren is from Manchester, England and Karen is from those parts too, but I'm not sure where. They've lived in Madrid for ten years, but Warren's Spanish is still embarrassing (same goes for Simon) :). Karen is fluent. They were quick to welcome us invited us to eat dinner with them right away (and Andrew and Andrea). Warren is a huge fan of giving people a hard time. We get along well.

Andrew and Andrea are from Texas and Canada, respectively, though neither of them carry the expected accent though. They both work at the American School here, Andrea as a teacher and Andrew as an IT guy. They were the first people that we met at the church and have been good friends. Andrew helped me jailbreak my iphone which was a godsend.

Well that's all for now. This blog post took about 3 weeks to finally complete and you can expect another one very soon.

Ciao,

Luke

The ole ball and chain

Spolier alert: if you gag easily at sappy facebook posts then this is not for you.

Let’s be honest. We all have friends on facebook that feel the need to constantly update to tell us how “perfect” or how “amazing” their significant other is. I usually try and skip past those posts as quickly as possible because there is something really needy about wanting everyone to see something that is so personal. Why can’t they just say those things to their sig other in a secret message? Anywho, today I’m a hypocrite (just today? :)) and would like to just say a couple things about my hubby as I’ve been reflecting on God’s goodness and all of the things he’s blessed me with.

Love has meant many things to a lot of people throughout the ages but these are things that I love about Luke. For my husband, who is perfectly imperfect.

- You are yourself all of the time, from someone whom you’ve just met to childhood friends. You are easy and fun to talk to (you make everyone feel included and equally harassed).

- You like what you like and don’t feel the need to conform (even when that means you log insane amounts of call of duty and for teaching Jake new phrases to shout in your headset)

- You are a leader (especially when it comes being first in line for Thanksgiving/Christmas/Summer dinners)

- You wash the dishes well J (you say you are more efficient than me)

- You are calm (after I’ve probably escalated an argument)

- You are adventurous (from picking up crocodiles with your bare hands to taking me scuba diving, to adventures in Central America)

- You are quick to say you’re sorry (must come from all of the practice) :)

- You are unique (Your facial hair styles have no rival)

- You care about the state of the world (let’s just face it, you are a nerd. Who else checks out economics books from the library?)

- You are a committed friend (I’ve still yet to understand the bromance you and Mike have together).

- You’re brothers look up to you (I guess since Jake is taller he looks down and Dane did outsell you in roofs this year)

- You are a musician (the star drummer in After Elam (they are really big in Lincoln, Nebraska))

In all seriousness, I am so thankful for Luke and for God giving me the days that I’ve spent with him. He is a true blessing and there are many things I have to learn from him. I pray God grants us many more. If you’ve anything to say to him please feel free to post a comment. Hope you didn’t gag too much. :)

Blessings,

Katie

La vida Cotidiana

I didn't really know that much about Spain before we arrived here. For that matter I still don't, but I'm learnin' me good. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the word "siesta" in Spanish. It means "nap". The Spanish love siestas almost as much as Katie does (she's sleeping right now @6:04 pm local time). I don't know if the Spanish actually take a nap in the afternoon, but everything here closes down from 2:00 - 5:00 in the afternoon. It's really annoying, but on the other hand places open back up and stay open til about 8-9, which is nice. It takes a bit to get used to this sort of thing. Can you imagine trying to go to Walgreen's at 4 o'clock and finding that it's closed! It's just different, that's all.

Did you know that Madrid is the only city in the world to regularly experience traffic jams at midnight with people try to COME IN to the city!?! On the weekends people love to stay up all night partying. They come into town at about midnight and then the clubs OPEN between 1-3 in the morning and the kids will party until about 7 AM and then some hardcore partiers will continue to drink a beer on the sidewalk with their buddies. This is called Botellon. Botella means bottle, so botellon means big bottle. It's an age old tradition here and sometimes our neighborhood will be packed with late teens drinking at all hours of the night. Surprisingly very little crime results from this practice (at least as far as I'm aware...). Katie and I have yet to join in the festivities :)

Anyway, I'll try to tell you about our life here without boring you to death. On the average day we wake up at about 7 (Luke=7:35) and eat some quick breakfast and try to catch the train at about 8:05. Our ride to school involves 3 trains and usually takes about 50-55 min. It's not as bad as you might think though. When your not driving it's easy to pass the time reading the newspaper or eavesdropping on strangers' conversations. Our school day goes from 9-3:15 or 4. During that time though we have a 2 hour lunch break. Today I used that time to sleep on the floor of a classroom and awake with a nasty crick in my neck. Usually we try to talk to the other teachers while we're all eating lunch, but I only understand about a tenth of whats said. They just talk so dang fast! They really do. We have some friends here from South America who speak at a reasonable pace, and they're easy to understand, but these dang Spaniards just go a mile a minute. I think it has something to do with the culture here. It's an extremely social culture. People make out everywhere! On the subway, the bus, the street, the grocery store. Everywhere. It's just flat out gross. I mean I tried to convince Katie that we need to become a part of the culture here, but she's still resisting. I'll keep you posted.

Continuing on. Teaching has been quite an experience. The kids here never flipping shut up. We spend most of the class shushing them or just outright shouting at them to be quiet. It just never stops. Maybe if school started a bit earlier they would come just a bit more tired... but really then I would just come more tired and that would be worse. Bad idea. Well, luckily for me I am blessed at appearing angry, which usually scares the better kids into silence. Katie has had a harder time of it. She's teaching second grade, which is pretty hilarious. I've seen these kids and they are insane. If more than half the class remains seated for the entire hour you could say that it has been a successful day! I am teaching 3rd and 5th, which I really like. Don't get me wrong, they're still insane, but in a slightly more manageable way.

Teaching has been enjoyable, but it is tiresome. Jason Wilmot previously explained elementary school to me as constant bribery, which is absolutely true. Negative reinforcement only goes so far, so you have to give then good fun reasons to pay attention and learn. Who would have thought that drawing a star by the kids name would work so well? And when you get 5 stars guess what... you get a piece of candy and an eraser (called a "rubber" here) with a star on it!!!

This past week the one of the second grade teachers that Katie has been teaching with didn't show up on Monday and Katie was informed that she wouldn't be here for the next two weeks and that she would have to work full time and run the class. The teacher didn't leave any lesson plans or anything, so Katie had to make them all herself. Katie works with two different teachers, one is very good at managing the class, and the other who was gone, has a bit of trouble. Katie planned out the lessons and manage to get the class to behave a bit more reasonably, but she did send me a text on friday (We usually only work four days a week, but Katie had to work everyday this week - so she was at school and I wasn't :) that said "I probably won't see you again outside of jail because I will have murdered some 2nd graders!!!". Despite this she said the week went well.

Well, I think that's all for this post. I'll try to segment and document our experiences here is a more topical manner from now on... or maybe chronological. Who knows! Well, I hope this blog "le caigan bien"! I think that's how you say it, but katie isn't here to correct me, so that may make no sense at all...

The rain in Spain!

Full disclosure - it barely rains in Spain. Also, Spain is called España to those of us that speak Mexican. I am nearly fluent in Mexican, but my Spanish is coming along a bit more slowly. It's like this. Imagine if you were to learn English in the mountains of Kentucky (or some other "redneck" headquarters) and then tried to converse in London. Technically you are both speaking English, but of a very different variety. This has been my experience so far.

Starting from the top. We arrived here on the 23 of September 2010. It was a Wednesday. We stayed in a very overpriced hostel/hotel and did our "training". The training was actually very informative and inspiring, leading most of us to believe that we were going to make a difference. On October first we started at our school. It's called Fernando de los Rios and it's in Getafe, Spain. This is basically a suburb south of Madrid, but since they have their own team in La Liga (Premier Spanish football league) they get to be their own city.

Time to backtrack. We spent the majority of out time during to first two weeks here trying to find a piso (flat, apartment). Since the wifi at our hostel was garbage we went down to the Reina Sofia modern art museum to use their free wifi. See the problem with trying to find an apartment in Spain is that you inevitably end up dealing with Spanish people. After calling about 30 prospective landlords we were able to arrange 3 viewings. Yes, only 3. You would think that a landlord would be excited to show their apartment and get it rented out. Wrong. To most of them it seemed like to much work to actually go show the place. Well we finally found one and moved in. It had two balconies and was pretty awesome... to me. Katie felt differently. Apparently it smelled. It did smell. I can't describe what it smelled like, but it didn't smell really good, it smelled a bit foul. Anyway, after one night there Katie decided that she could no longer live there. I called the landlord and bribed here with 200 euros to get out of the contract. She was not happy, but agreed. We went to another hostel and redoubled our efforts. Ironically we found our current apartment on ebay from a guy named Juan. Sounds Spanish right? Again, wrong. It's actually spelled Whan and he is from South Korea, but lives in Spain and makes documentaries about Spanish Culture which are aired on tv in Korea. Pretty cool guy. It's more expensive than we wanted to pay, but it's really cool even though it doesn't have an oven and the microwave is broken. We use the stove. Exclusively.

Our first need of course was internet. After copious research I called a "Jazztel" to come install it for us. We then found out that we can't get internet until we have a bank account. We can't get a bank account until we get our NIE number (residency card), and for that we have to wait for the government. It the states you have a some understanding of the hassle of bureaucracy. Come here to get the full picture. Luckily for us we finally found a bank that would allow us to set up an account with only our passport numbers. Yay! Also, the director of our school, Paco, has a friend at the government building that gives out the NIE numbers. He made a call and we skipped the line, getting in and out in 10 min. Most people sit there for at least four hours.

Anyway, Jazztel. I was finally able to contact them, but every time they would call me back to confirm the installation they would just hang up on me. Pinches pendejos! I attribute this to my speaking Mexican in place of Spanish. When I answered the phone they just assumed they had the wrong number and say they would call back later. Finally Katie answered and made the guy promise that he wouldn't hang up on me. He didn't. But they still weren't going to be able to come for at least 2 weeks. No self respecting American 20 something can go without internet for more than about 3 minutes, so we had to find a temporary solution. Luckily that solution was living above us. Our elderly neighbors had wifi becuase their grandson had been living with them until recently (this is normal here), so for 20 euro a month they would give us the password, but only after telling us their life story. This also is not rare. I know from selling roofs to similar folk in Lincoln. They just need someone to talk to! I barely understood most of their story, but Katie was very adept at throwing in some "aye's" and "porque's" and "que triste's". My big mistake was commenting on how lovely the rest of their family seemed judging from the pictures strewn about the place. At this, the woman started crying and told us that two of here sons were dead! One in a scooter accident (this is now completely understandable, they drive like maniacs here) and the other from some disease. The woman was just balling which made her Spanish even less comprehensible than before, but we finally walked out with the password.

Alright. That's all for now. I know you're intrigued, but my ADD prevents me from writing in segments larger than 45 minutes. I will try to post more later this week.

Luke

This littler bugger makes me happy

Although teaching 2nd graders has been frustrating sometimes they channel their energy into something creative. I tried to catch such moment on film, but they thought I was taking a picture.

Christmas came a little early this year

A huge thank-you to Carol 2 (squared) for sending us some Christmas goodies. Just a few things we received:
-Starbucks coffee (Vanilla and Caramel)
-Real Simple Magazine for me
-Black Ops Call of Duty for Luke (a new headache for me :) )
- our favorite caramels
-new pj pants (fleece is my fave)

So you see, we were spoiled big time but it's comforting to know you are being thought of back home.