3 weeks in Spain!

I came to Soria, Spain, 3 weeks ago. Some fun facts about my new home: it's in one of the highest points in Spain (altitude-wise), and therefore one of the coldest, and (probably therefore) one of the least populated in Europe. You wouldn't know it by the look of the streets, plazas, bars, and restaurants - they are constantly bustling, except, of course, during siesta time, which takes place between 2-5pm and sees the shutting down of pretty much the entire city.

On the cultural and social fronts: people are very friendly, open, and easy to talk to. Introducing myself during the first few days was hilarious. I'm used to North Americans having a hard time with my jewname, but they're definitely polite and subdued in their confusion. Meanwhile, this is the face I've been met with every single time I've introduced myself since getting here:



Spanish people have a reaaaally hard time pronouncing Smadar without adding an "é" sound at the beginning - hence my blog's title.

Work at the school has been interesting... The first week, I introduced myself, talked about my family, and did my part as a "cultural ambassador" of Le Quebec, là là, by explaining about Poutine, name-dropping Céline, and describing our igloos. The kids are surprisingly well-behaved, for the most part. I work with 3 teachers: let's call them E, Iz, and C. It's amazing how different the dynamic is with each one of them. E guides the conversation in class, asking me questions and prompting the students to do the same. Iz, meanwhile, takes a seat in the back of the classroom and pretty much leaves me on my own to run things. It's not stressful, but it's tiring. Then there's C, who's new at the school. She doesn't discipline. Kids make out in her classroom.

There are a whole bunch of auxiliares in Soria, including my roomies, Erin from Connecticut, and Simon from Leeds, England. They are hilarious and I adore them! We spent our first evening in our new apartment painting chicken-shaped candles with green nail polish because we had been hoping to rent a place with a modern kitchen with lime-green cabinets that we often mispronounced as "green chicken". When we ended up renting our far more conveniently-located (a 5 minute walk from the center and the school) piso with a white kitchen instead, we decided to buy the chicken candles and varnish at one of the local chinos (Soria is full of Chinese-owned shops that are like mini-Walmarts, really) and put them on display in our kitchen. So now we really do have a green chicken!

There is so much more I could write about - like the other auxiliares in Soria (my amica Francesca from Italy with whom my roomies and I hang out daily, Tom from Australia with whom I binged on Nutella in a hostel in Madrid, and Julian, the WEIRDEST, tallest, skinniest, most non-german German you will EVER meet, who found himself homeless and sans-suitcase on his 3rd day in Spain and instead of panicking, wandered the streets listening to his iPod and eating Milka)... I hadn't intended to keep a blog because I prefer sending e-mails or telling these little anecdotes on the phone/skype, but it's been kind of hard to keep up!! So for now, I'll end this post and say hasta luego and go join my roomies in our kitchen, which is where I spend most of my time anyway because Spain has done something to my appetite and I CANNOT STOP EATING.