Cheers

"Where [almost] everybody knows your name..."
That pretty much has summed up life here in Manzanares so far. I'll be walking and I hear my name being yelled all the time. I have about 600 students, so I am bound to see a couple everyday! I'm still not used to seeing my students in a bar. Something weird about drinking and seeing high school kids that you have a professional relationship with...
Last night I stayed out until 5:15 with Mike and Virginia. We went to a tapas bar for a few drinks, then went to another place, Monsturo (I'll need to check the spelling on that), but it translates to Monster. It is a place where they have concerts and it is a hang out place. I saw all of the punk rock life congregate last night. It was pretty fun, we just stayed for a drink and left. When they sing rock in Spanish is sounds a lot like British punk, it reminded me of some shows I went to years ago. It reminded me of this video of "hard core dancing" and how one of my friends just got a good laugh out of it all. Then we went to another bar called Deja Vu - it was pretty neat, they played a lot of older American Rock, then yet to another bar called Shaman which played a lot of metal. It has permanent Halloween decorations there, and proved to be a great place to people watch. We finally ended up at the one and only disco in Manzanares. It was pretty busy there (note it was almost 4am when we got there) We met some of Virginia's friends and found a place on the dance floor. They played a lot of Spanish music (including Flamenco) and towards the end they played a lot of American hip hop hits. Some Lady Gaga, some Katy Perry, some Ke$ha, which I had a lot of fun with. It was interesting, many people on the dance floor weren't dancing...As people started to thin out...some of my students came up to me and said hello. Little awkward for me because I was probably dancing like a fool and it was 5am! It was tempting to ask them why they were up past their bedtime...haha. We left around 5:15, and as I was leaving one of my students kept asking me why I was leaving already! Needless to say, I accidentally slept in until 1pm today, so I feel a bit lazy today (I did get some laundry done and I did cook my own lunch if that counts as accomplishments of the day)
I think my Spanish is improving. Going out with people from Spain is very helpful (and I am glad I have Mike to help me with some words) Last night I also went on a historical tour of Manzanares. I didn't understand a lot of it, but I hope to go on another one and maybe keep practicing. It is a lot of new vocabulary and all. So I think it was beneficial, nice to know a lot about the city. It was founded in the 8th century!
I've had a busy week, lots of private lessons and lots of classes. Some of the younger classes are learning about nationalities and music - so I made a fill in the blank with lyrics to a Taylor Swift song. Yes - it is more pop country than real country, but it is the kind of country I can stand. So I gave a brief history of country music and then played the song for them to fill in and we went over the words and what they meant. Then if we had time, I played it again for them to sing together. Funny considering I HATED singing Spanish songs together in my Spanish classes. They would make the microphone go on you so everyone could hear. It was pretty awful - and yet I did it to my own students, I guess they didn't have to do the microphone part...In my more advanced classes, I gave a lesson about issues in America. We talked about gay rights and the political system here. The teacher also wanted me to talk about the tea-party as well (which was difficult considering I think they are a bunch of nut-jobs). Here Republican is "left wing" and Democrat is "right wing" so I got to hear their opinions on things as well, which is nice. I also talked a bit about media bias which was also interesting to do. All of this was right up my alley, so it was enjoyable for me. Friday Karlyn, Mike and I ventured to Ciudad Real to take care of our NIE card allowing us the be here legally. The train ride was uneventful and early (mornings are not my thing).As soon as we got to the Delegacion building we filled out some paperwork, which surprisingly didn't take long, but to get it processed was another story. It probably took over an hour for us all to go and get information added. When I went up, they had my name split in to two last names - Mc as the first, and Gee as the second. That took a minute to fix, I made sure they got it right. I looked at my passport and my name does have a space before the c and the g, must be why they thought of it as two names. After completion, we had some time to kill so we went and got churros and coffee (not as good as in Barcelona, but still good). I decided to do some shopping since I needed some winter-wear. I bought a sweater and some long sleeved shirts. I need to go back, I felt a bit rushed and I didn't want to bore the people with me. We arrived at the train station about 15-20 minutes before our train left, we were not expecting a line out the door for tickets. So we waited as long as we could and ended up just getting on the train without one. Apparently here, if you don't have a ticket they just charge you for the amount - no fine. There were about 20 people ahead in line that did the same thing. So it all worked out no problems.
The heat in our apartment now turns on in the evening - which is super nice! I am sleeping better finally. This week for class, I have to find some Halloween activities to do. I'll be researching that tomorrow so hopefully I find something for it.

Keep it real

Tori