Winter Break: Navidad en Madrid

Christmas time started our just right this year, with me introducing "Gingerbread houses" to the children I tutor. The blurry peace sign is from Rodrigo, but most of the work was done by myself and his little sister Iciar. Their mom worked really hard to find us graham crackers, but could not so she got us these small salty crackers, which...if you can see from above...didn't really work very well for the gingerbread house. However, the kids LOVED it -- I mean they got to eat candy along the way so how could they not? I loved being able to introduce this home tradition to them. I texted a picture to Jolene with our attempt saying that "we tried". She laughed. We also played Christmas music and Ed Sheeran while we chit chatted and built the house -- so still keeping this an English lesson! These two LOVE Ed Sheeran. I've been really surprised by how popular Ed Sheeran is in Spain.

At my other private tutoring session, we tried to make Christmas cupcakes...we put green dye in some cupcakes to try and make them Christmas themed...they look...kinda green...tasted pretty good though! I wanted to do gingerbread houses with her too, but her mom wasn't able to get the supplies in time. We will do them after Christmas break though -- hopefully we have better success than I did with Iciar and Rodrigo!

Like I mentioned in another post, at school I got to show my students how to make luminaries. They also had a great time making them. We had a nice set up in the art room where things got a bit hectic -- tissue paper and glue everywhere! But my kids ended up with some really nice and creative luminaries and I ended up with some sore fingers from twisting wire handles around 84 glass jars.

For the holidays, the school went all out for lunch the day before break. We had a feast -- multiple plates of tortilla, cheese, meats, sweets...and even wine and beer (above)! The school also gave everyone Christmas gifts, which was so kind! We got a little bath kit of lotion, shampoo and gel.

The highlight of the end of school celebrations was the wedding that ALMOST happened (above) and the Christmas show. During the last two days of school, the school puts on a Christmas show. Each grade and each class perform a song. There's singing, dancing, synchronized drumming...etc. Two of my classes did serious performances...the other two started seriously, and then one of them ended with the Harlem Shake and the other one ended with Swish Swish by Katy Perry -- both involved random dancing at the end. It was hilarious -- once I figure out how to upload videos I will post the performance here.

SCHOOL DRAMA: On the last day of school, there was to be a wedding between two of my students: Andrea and Ivan. However, Ivan had just broken up with Noelia, and then the next day started dating Andrea, and then right before break was going to marry her! The kids were totally into it, as you can see from the picture above, they were all helping to have the wedding in the classroom! Too bad for them, the wedding was postponed as they all had to go to the gym and help clean it up after the Christmas show. Then they had an all school dance! It was so fun! One of my student's (Hector), mom, came and did zumba with the school! I had a blast dancing with my students. Little did I know that on the sidelines, Noelia was in tears over the wedding and the wedding had been CANCELLED. Too much drama for 6th grade. Good thing they all had a two week break coming up to cool down!

The end of school also meant I finally has some time to catch up with friends from home (Sydnee and Josh for example). It was just insane how time went by so fast. There are still so many people I need to catch up with, but it was so nice to catch up with at least a couple people! Makes me glad that we're still staying in touch even after college.

Best of all, Brad came to visit for the whole Christmas break. Erin's mom Kim had shipped her supplies to decorate cookies (sweetest gift, literally). So Brad had his first cookie making session in Madrid. Erin made us pose above with our lip cookies. Mine looks kinda like a football though...so didn't do too well on the cookie front. Brad on the other hand, got Mama Keoppen's cookie making approval (below).

For Brad's Christmas present, I bought us tickets to an amusement park in Madrid I had heard about from some of my students: Parque Warner (below). We had a really good time -- albeit cold at first as we got there before the gates opened and had to wait a half an hour to get in. At first, a lot of the rides weren't open when we walked in too -- I was worried I had bought us tickets to just look at the amusement park, not to go on rides! Thankfully everything ended up opening up in the end, minus the water rides and this old wild west ride. My favorite ride was this batman virtual ride. You do go on the roller coaster, but you wear a headset so you can't really see where you are going, and it plays a scene with the Joker in it. We also got to watch this cool car show, where cars and motorcycles spun and went up ramps and did jumps. It was great! We spent the whole day there and then took the bus home.

Christmas we spent inside because it was raining and everything was closed. It was perfect though - we slept in and opened presents. Made food (because everything is closed Christmas Eve and Christmas day, so we planned ahead). We also skyped both of our families. I felt a bit homesick watching my family open their gifts, but it was still really nice to skype in. I had just watched one of my all time favorite Christmas movies, "A Year Without a Santa Claud" with Erin, so instead I showed Brad another classic "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Don't think he really got over the odd animation, but it's a build up to "A Year Without a Santa Claus".

Spent the next couple of days showing Brad, Madrid. Above is the Crystal Palace in Retiro Park. I later learned that it's also an exhibition dedicated to those who have lost their lives trying to make it to Europe. It's a beautiful palace, and if you go make sure you look down at the names in memory of those people who were just trying to make a better life for themselves.

Above is the neighborhood of Malasaña, which is right next to our neighborhood. We walked around there a lot. It's also where I picked up my Christmas gifts for Willa and Erin (there are some really nice tea shops there and Willa and Erin are very into Matcha right now). Besides walking around for hours, we spent our time eating Spanish food, pumpkin pie, and all of the leftovers we had from other meals. The holidays are a great time for eating! Plus, we had to finish all of our leftovers because on the 27th we headed off to Morocco!