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Pre-race

General Javi (friend of Javi), Javi, me and Liz

Javi and I doing Rocky Balboa

After the race and..... AFTER the race! Spanish style!




I reached my goal. I finished the half-marathon in Madrid this past weekend, a goal I would never have set if it weren't for Javi and Liz. I wasn't sure if it was an expereince I even wanted to have (13 odd miles/ 21 odd km isn't exactly one's idea of Sunday fun) but I figured at least it would force me to get my rear in gear and run. Well, that theory worked only partially. After signing up, I didn't magically have time to run (it is usually dark my the time I get home and daylight savings time just kicked in last week) but I did manage to go once or twice per week thanks to future motivational speaker, Javi, and queen of positive thinking, Liz.





I was actually quite nervous the night before the race. I certainly wasn't in it to win, but what if I couldn't finish??? On top of it all, my ipod with my handy-dandy nike plus gadget that tells you everything you need to know about your run froze on me the night before with no apparent solution in sight. (There I was at 1:30 am cursing apple and all mac products...you know how I get when I am tired!) I CAN'T run without music!!!! Eventually I decided to load up some MP3's on my phone and carry that, which actually turned out quite well. I was able to make a few phone calls durng the race and take some pics that Paco missed due to his early morning arrival from Saturday evening and late start to the day.



It was certainly a unique experience that I enjoyed and will remember for a long time. The ambiance was amazing. Many people came out to cheer us on (Venga, animo! Ya estais!) which helped tremendously and in many cases was quite entertaining. Also, the sheer fact that I was able to run through the middle of the streets in Madrid gave me a new and interesting perspective on the city. After running for a total of 2 hours and 19 minutes, I crossed the finish coming in at number 9614 of a total 9867 runners. (I had thought that 12,000 runners were running but appartantly I was misinformed or else over 2,000 people didn't finish!) I know it isn't an impressive position, but I don't care. I did it and I finished it and I know now that I can. (and of course, I wasn't LAST!) Besides, I know I won again the title of "Fastest Female Runner from Pittston," I am quite sure of that.

And, to answer your question: NO. I am NOT going to train for a full marathon.

PS: Did I mention in the runner's gift bag there was a can of beer???

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Introducing to the world my newest nephew born March 22, 2008, while I was home to meet him. Now, there's kid after his auntie's heart. He's a little peanut, the poor kid has no hand-me downs that even fit! I can't wait to see him grow!

So what else is new with me? not much! After a much needed spring break and a wonderful trip home to visit the fam (and of course my boys!) I am back in Madrid trying to get back into the grind. Daylight savings time began yesterday so now we have an insanely long day...I think it was dusk when I left my class around 9pm this evening. It's pretty nice, especially because now I can take advantage of the extra light time to train for the half marathon. Oh, but wait, it's this Sunday and my training is minimally existant at best. Paco and I drove the route yesterday and I am a bit scared, especially since my hiney was aching from the 7 mile run I did on Saturday. So, wish me luck folks!

I am still battling everyday with my internal "where/when/how am I going to have a wedding" debate. Sadly, despite my running- clear-my-head time, no progress has been made. It is slightly embarrassing that I have no better clue now than when I got engaged 3 months ago. Am I going to be one of those permanantly engaged but never married couples? I hope not, because many people I know have theories about that kind of thing, which have proven to be rather accurate, and I don't want to go there.

Apart from that, just teaching and teaching and that's about it. I wish I had something more exciting to speak of, but hey Charlie takes the spotlight, isn't that enough?

Lost in blogger land

It has been a while, I know I haven't updated. But, since Amanda and Paco seems to be the only ones that follow my blog, and they pretty much know exactly what is going on with my life on a daily basis, I haven't felt much urgency to update. And, besides, my life is not too exciting; I really haven't been up to much.
Work pretty much consumes mine and Paco's lives, so when the weekend comes I am just content to be at home doing anything and nothing in particular. We all know that I am not one for a smokey bar at 2am, or 7am, as the case may be here in spain.

So here are the highlights of the past month (or "dim"lights, based on your perspective....my glass tends to be half empty!)

• I turned 29....urg, am I really publishing that on the internet? It was quite an uneventful event, especially since it fell on a monday. On Sunday, my friend Amanda had a nice dinner in my honor at her apartment complete with a Betty Crocker cake....YUM! So, that was fun! And, my class on Tuesday evenings (with four boys ages 7-9) threw me a surprise party. They are kind of like Jack, any excuse to have a party! But, still it was nice.
  
  
  





• The weekend just prior to my bday we attended Paco's cousin's wedding. It was a very nice, albeit interesting event. Paco's cousin is a very unique individual and that was certainly reflected in his wedding. One thing that was very interesting, that I didn't realize, despite my experience with Spanish weddings, is that the cake is cut with a sword! Check out the pics.
  
  

• Other than that, some bday sushi, a few birthday packages (thanks mom and jess!) lots of flowers and another year under my belt. I am quite depressed about my last year of being in my 20's.
  
  
• I have taken to reading again recently, a favorite passtime of mine that I had abandoned since I started gradschool and continued to be abandoned due to my hectic schedule. I have read similar but two very interesting books. Although they are both written originally written in English but circumstatially I read both in Spanish. (One was a birthday gift and the other was lent to me by a student's mother.) I don't think anything was lost in translation, but I might have to read them in English to check. In any case, both I highly recommend. They are easy reads and if you enjoy books like The Diary of Anne Frank, you will fly through these: When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.
  
  
• I am signed up to run a half marathon with Javi April 6. My training schedule is less than optimal (I use the term training schedule extreemly loosely) but I stress that it is a HALF marathon and my only goal is to run it....I am not in it to win!
  
  
• We started to look at sites here in Madrid and the surrounding area for the wedding. We haven't decided for sure that we want to do it here, but I think we are leaning that way. There are so many factors involved for us just choosing the location that I don't know if I can go through with a whole wedding planning process. I mean looking at magazines and websites is fun, but actually choosing (and thinking about paying for) all of this is completely overwhelming. One pro for Spain is that there are less decisions to make. Here the site coordinators choose most things for you. So, unless you want something really particular you don't have to worry about every minute detail. Still, we'll see. Some of Paco's friends are lobbying for a NYC wedding! I am thinking if I could get over the stigma of saying "I got married in Vegas" that would be my choice.
  
  
• Last but not least, a child related anecdote:
  
  Every Wednesday I take groups of my second graders out of class to prepare for the Trinity College oral English exam that they will do in the spring. I have to ask questions and get the students to interact with me in conversation about their everyday life. Of course there are some questions about family. One as simple as "what is your daddy's name?" however shocked me. In the US I would have been more careful about this question, but in my 2nd grade class the majority of children come from intact stable homes...I thought. When I asked Saul that simple question "what is your daddy's name?" He told me he didn't know. Uh-oh I thought, because sure enough a "how do you say" was coming. Saul asked me "how do you say that I don't have a daddy and that I don't know who my daddy is because my mommy had the sperm implanted in her and we never knew who the daddy was?"

Geez, Saul, sorry I just don't know how to say that one!

kids say the darndest things....and them some

So two quick funny stories about this week.

Since this week was the first week of class since break, in my private lessons with the kids we were focusing on "What did Santa/ The Three Kings bring for Christmas?" My objective was to teach some vocuabulary for toys and gifts. So, I made them draw 5 gifts that they recieved, a few that their mommies recieved and a few that their daddies recieved. I am quite accustomed to fielding the "How do you say in English...?" questions, however, I was not prepared for what happened next. In a class of 4 boys (ages 7-9) three of the four drew undergarments for their mommies. The fun didn't stop there either. One of the mommies who was present during the class, instead of sinking into the couch of embarrasment, proudly went and fetched her reindeer thong to show all of us...a little show and tell....fun! So amongst the words videogames and interactive globe, I also had the pleasusre of teaching the boys "studded thong" (yeah, they described for me where the placement of the sparkly studs were) and "bikini bottoms." I think it is a lesson that these boys will wish they remembered in about 10 years.

In my class with two super cute 7 year old girls, we were also talking about Christmas presents. One of the girls spotted my engagement ring.
"oooh!" she said.
I respoded, "oh, do you like my new ring?"
She said "very much! Is it dum, dum, dum-dum ?" (humming the wedding march)
"Well actually, yes." I said
The girls dissolved into giggles and then proceded to give me advice as to where I should have the wedding. Maybe I will take Andrea's advice and get married in the Canary Islands.

Happy New Year

Happy 2008 everyone!

(even though my everyone probably only includes an audience of 3 people, my mom and my fiancé being two...woah, I have a fiancé!)

The holidays are officially over and I am feeling an overwhelming sense of “wait a second, it already happened??” I, being typical me, completely overbooked myself for the 2+ weeks of vacation that I had. One week back in the States, that seemed more like a quick weekend, gave me less than sufficient time to do most of the things on my to-do and to-see list. Sorry to everyone who I unwillingly shafted. It was nice to spend some quality, albeit minimal, time with my family. I miss them a lot this year, especially my Owen who is changing drastically on what seems like daily basis.

Owen and Jack on their new John Deere.

After the whirlwind visit at home it was back to Spain for New Year’s Eve and to experience some of the holiday traditions here. Due to our plans to travel to Andorra the following day, New Year’s consisted of a nice family diner at Paco’s aunt and uncle’s home and then home to bed. As you know dinner here is eaten quite late (10ish) and New Years was no different. Lots of seafood and of course some ham and chorizo later I was stuffed. But in Spain, you have to save room for at least 12 grapes. The tradition here is to eat the 12 grapes with each of the bell chimes once the clock strikes midnight. If you don’t you are destined to a year of bad luck. Well, you can imagine what happened to me. Let’s just say I needed a few more chimes. However, I can't be bothered with such superstition because that same night I carried away the gordo (the big prize) in the Castro family bingo pool….that’s right 5 euritos!

In the picture you can see the famous “cagonet” which is apparently a staple in the Spanish Nativity scene. In Spain the most central Christmas decoration, even more so than the Christmas tree, is the Nativity scene (here it’s call El Belén, or the Bethlehem) Paco’s Aunt had one that was quite large, and of course I couldn’t resist photographing the strangest thing I see.

January 1 it was off to Andorra for a week of skiing (and again as luck would have it I did not break any limbs!) Andorra is a tiny country in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. (This ain't no Montage mountan, folks.)One might even mistake it as part of Spain, but it is its own country which lives almost entirely off the winter sports business. It is quite a quaint mountain country and the constant smell of firewood adds to the cozy ambiance. We had good weather and a good time, but man, was I exhausted.

We stayed in Andorra until the Three Kings Day (January 6) which here in Spain is the end of the Christmas holiday and the day of the presents. I was lucky enough to see my first Cabalgata (3 Kings parade) in Andorra. It began at the top of a slope right by our apartment and it began with fireworks and a snake of lights creeping down the slope. It turns out the snake was about 40 ski patrollers with torches who were leading the three Kings, each of which arrived on his own snow grooming machine. I have to admit, Santa doesn’t do anything that cool.

I was also lucky enough to win at Playstation buzz to be the queen for the day, so naturally I wore my crown and cut the Roscon de Reyes (a cream filled pastry-like cake that is eaten on 3 Kings day in Spain.) And furthermore, I didn’t get the figurine in my piece (which means I didn’t have to pay for the cake!)

2008 looks like it might be an ok year

La Navidad has arrived!

The ham and wine that are part of the traditional "cesta de navidad" (christmas basket) that employers normally give to their employees.

Christmas spirit is all over Madrid. Lights are in place, trees have been mounted and decorated, music and carols are everywhere and Papa Noel (aka: Santa Claus) and the Three Kings are vying for the priviledge of being the most popular present bearer of the season. (This is a huge polemic here, since the Reyes, the three kings, are Spanish tradition, but the commercialization of Santa and the convenience of his earlier arrival is winning over the yonger generations.) And as you can see from the picture they are breaking into many houses all over Spain, probably in attempt to brainwash the children.

In my school, we celebrated on Friday the kid's Christmas pageant. They had been preparing and practicing for weeks and it definitely paid off. Maybe I am biased, but I think my 2nd gradeer stole the show. They did a cute play (in Spanish) and then sang a Spanglish Christmas song. Check out the video here and you can let me know what an unbiased opinion is.

I have already gotten many Christmas gifts, mostly from students and other teachers. But the best gift I have ever gotten came last Thursday night when Paco asked me to marry him....officially!!!!!! (of course I said yes!) So I won't be needing any other Christmas gifts this year!

(He, he he! Saved the best news for last!)

And the big news just keeps on coming!

My sister's getting married!!! Amy and Colin got engaged in Champagne, France this weekend. I am even more excited to go home now. Wedding planning for this one should be interesting to say the least!

I'd write more but my week with the flu and then my week recovering really don't have any highlights that compare. I do need remark, however, that we managed to get away for the weekend last weekend (despite my miserable flulike symptoms) to Logroño (In La Rioja, Spain's wine region) and to San Sebastian in Spain's Basque Region, making a quick stop in Burgos to eat some morcilla. It was what you might call a gastronomic tour. We ate often and well. Unfortunately we didn't get to really visit any of the wineries because we went in off season and during a holiday weekend. (In Spain commerce doesn't take advatage of things like holiday weekends to make money, but rather to take vacations. It's a concept that we Americnas cannot really comprehend.) Anyway, we did visit a really interesting wine museum at a winery; my favorite part- the collection of over 3000 corkscrews from all over the world throughout time. Here are some pics:

Burgos: the cathedral La Rioja: freezing in the vineyard, outside the wine museum.

San Sebastian: view from the hills, some serious surf on the beach, a beautiful sunset.