En Espana!

I've been waiting for two years for an opportunity to travel to Europe and now that time has finally come. With college graduated, EMT class passed, money saved all winter I am not currently lively with a wonderful family in Madrid, Spain. I plan on staying here for around three months and then traveling the rest of Europe with a couple friends.

The opportunity to live with a Spanish family came from a inquiry I made last year with the career center at UCSC. They gave me several options on how to make living abroad a possibility  I ended up choosing to participate with a company called InterExchange. Based out of New York, this company operates with hundred of contacts across the world to find families who have need of an english speaker who can help them practice their English.

After submitting the necessary paper work that includes a background check, multiple personality essays, and picture collage, I was placed with a family just outside Madrid in a semi suburban town called Las Rozas. 

Now, I am here! The family is great. The seven year old twin boy and girl I tutor are great kids who already have great english speaking skills. My host mother and father are both very friendly. The mother works at a news broadcast in Madrid and the father works at home producing films for a variety of different clients. He is a big sci fi fan with an impressive collection of Star Wars figures.







The house is really nice. A three story building in a friendly cul-de-sac neighborhood. The top floor is devoted to my host dad's work and has a library of cool books, models, and a collection of hats, swords, and paintings from places their family has traveled.  There are four bedrooms in the house with two bathrooms. I have my own bedroom with a window overlooking the neighborhood and in what seems to be a common spanish trait, a metal shutter that can completely block out the morning's sun. There is a park at the end of the street with a hiking trail that rounds about into a light forested area I have yet to explore fully.







So far I've gone on a couple of day trips around the area. Mostly the weather has been sunny but still pretty cool if you dont have a warm jacket. In other worlds pretty simliar to how California was when I left.

My first day in Madrid we went at watched Ander play futbol.  It was fun game to watch and the fact that it was being played inside on wooden floors about the size of a basket ball court made it more interesting. With the sliding kicks for several of the goals and surprisingly talented plays by the seven year old team it was a great introduction into Spain's number one sport. (FUN FACT: Basketball is the second most popular)

Later in the day after eating cocido ( a delicious stew of garbonzo beans, pork, chicken and chorizo) at a fundraiser in the children's school, we visited a park with two other families. 

Light snack and cool drinks characterize sunday evenings in Spain as most people relax and enjoy a day off from work.

The park seemed different from any park I've visited in the United States. I think it might have been the limited presence of  established rules and the expansive nature of the park. I don't know that this river could exist in a park in the United States

The day at the park was a great way to end spend my first weekend in Spain and allowed me time to reflect on what my role would be in the coming months, because starting Monday I would be tutoring the children in english with only a limited amount of knowledge of the Spanish language. I'm feeling a mixture of pressure and excitement in the face of this challenge. However, the excitement of all the new things im experiencing helps keep me motivated to learn more and do my best to tutor the students in english ! Adios for now..