From Wroclaw to Prague...

9 April 2012


This morning, we woke up to explore a little more of Wroclaw before leaving early in the afternoon for Prague in the Czech Republic. (While it might seem obvious that we were going to the Czech Republic, in doing some research about buses/trains to Prague (Czech Republic), we discovered that there is indeed a Prague in Poland!)

I had wanted to visit Wroclaw Palace this morning--which houses artifacts related to the history of Wroclaw. I thought this would prove to be interesting since Wroclaw has had a somewhat contentious history. In its history, it has been part of Poland, Austria, Germany, Prussia, and Bohemia. The reason it is now part of Poland is due to the borders agreed upon after WWII.

However, since it was Easter Monday, most places were once again closed.

We wandered around the main town square--known as the Rynek. In this square, we saw the Ratusz (town hall) with its almost gingerbread house style. In a nearby square, we saw a little market with people selling mostly flowers but also some souvenirs.


As we walked through the city, we saw a cathedral where people were walking across a bridge way between two of the cathedral towers. After speaking to an older Polish lady in a mixture of Polish and English, we were able to take the stairs up to the tower, and we were rewarded with this amazing view of the historical center of Wroclaw.







One of the things I liked best about Wroclaw was the architectural style of its buildings. Most of the cathedrals and other important buildings (like the town hall) had tiled roofs. But not just any type of tiled roofs! The tiles here alternated green and red--making each building seem like Christmas!

All too soon, it was time for us to make our way to the bus station for a nearly 5 hour bus ride to the Czech Republic!

Gnome-one's home in Wroclaw, Poland

8 April 2012

Full of ganas (excitement) for our trip to Wroclaw, Prague, Vienna, and Munich, I left my house singing the "So long, farewell..." song from The Sound of Music.

I arrived at Mercado (the market) to meet up with my friends (one American and two Spanish teachers who work at my school) before heading to the airport. I was both excited and nervous for our trip--excited because I was finally getting the opportunity to see Poland, but nervous because I absolutely can't stand flying.

Check out the Alps!

In the end, the flight wasn't too bad. I was definitely nervous--especially as we passed over the sea and the Alps--but I managed not to think too much about it while conversing with one of my friends and the father of a family in Valencia. The father from Valencia had traveled to a couple of the cities that we are going to visit and so he gave us some helpful advice.

In no time, we arrived in Wroclaw, Poland. Our first order of business was to figure out how to get to the hostel. We debated using the hostel instructions to take the bus and then a tram to the hostel. However, these seemed a little more complicated than we wanted to deal with. Ultimately, we decided to just take a taxi--which meant we wouldn't get lost!

Next, we had to decide what to do about money. Even though Poland is part of the European Union, it isn't a Eurozone country--meaning it has its own currency. The currency is called the zloty and one euro is approximately 4 zloty. Since we were only spending about 24 hours in Poland, we tried to take out the minimum amount of zloty possible. In fact, most places either accepted debit/credit cards or would allow us to use euros.


Even though we were in Poland, it almost felt like we never left Spain--given that we probably ran into more Spaniards than Poles. I figured that this was likely due to two factors:

1) It was a Sunday and most things are closed on Sundays;

2) It's also Easter Sunday so most people were probably with their families.

I thought about adding that it was a little chilly (nearly 32 degrees!), but the Polish people are more accustomed to cool temperatures.




Since everything was closed (and I mean just about everything), we wandered around the city--discovering its beauty.

In between passing groups of Spaniards and walking through the city, we encountered one unexplained oddity.

Gnomes. Lots of them.

The first one seemed random, but then we started noticing them everywhere. We knew that there had to be some story to explain their presence all over the city.












Apparently, the city commissioned them from an artist in 2005. Originally, there were only 25, but soon business owners wanted to have their own outside of their shops. Now, no one knows exactly how many there are within the city!

We saw gnomes at ATMs, holding flowers, riding a motorcycle, skiing, etc.

After a while, we sought refuge from the cold in one of the few bars/cafes that were actually open. There, I had some hot wine and one of the best pieces of carrot cake that I've ever had! Instead of a layer of frosting on top, there was dark chocolate--enhancing the flavor of the cake!

Preparations...

7 April 2012

I'm going to keep this post short since I still have a lot to do in order to get ready for my trip!

Tomorrow, I'm leaving with two of the preschool teachers from my school and another American friend for an adventure across Europe! We will see four countries in just 9 days! We'll use three different currencies. We'll see both Eastern and Central Europe.

We're going to fly from Alicante to Wroclaw, Poland. Sounds like a random place, I know. However, I'm excited to make my passport stamp from this fall "count" by spending time in Poland outside of the airport.

Then, we'll move on to the Czech Republic and the city of Prague. We will be dividing a majority of our time between Prague and our third city, Vienna.

After which, we are going to split up--with two of us going to Munich, Germany and the other two going to Budapest, Hungary.

Good Friday

7 April 2012

A picture is worth a thousand words. I'll let some pictures and video of today's processions speak for themselves.


A picture from the first procession I saw that day... Also, the only one during the day on Good Friday. Incidentally, while watching the procession, I realized that one of the costaleros (platform carriers) works at my school!

Video of the first procession of the day.

The poor band members don't get enough appreciation for the work that they do! I saw a number of them with bandages all over their hands from playing for hours.

Video of the second procession of the day.







Here the nazarenos line up in front of the Cathedral of St Nicolás as they await the arrival of the paso.

Here's the paso on its way into the church...

Video of the third procession of the day. This was the teenager paso. Poor kids! They look so tired!

Here is the paso of the 4th procession I saw that day.

Semana Santa: other procession traditions...

5 April 2012

Now that I've seen a few more Semana Santa processions, I can write a little more about some other traditions/observations that I've made.

First, children are a lot more involved in Semana Santa processions than I expected. At most of the processions, I have seen kids dressed as nazarenos--some with the capirotes (conical hoods) and others without. The young people in this photo are carrying crosses as well as passing out candy to the little kids. Since the nazarenos can be kind of scary figures (I'm an adult, and I think they are a little unnerving!), the children nazarenos give out candies to little kids in order to help them be less scared of the hooded figures.

By the end of the procession, some of the kids look about ready to fall over with exhaustion. Admittedly, walking around for 3 hours is tiring for any kid.





Up until this point, I hadn't seen the end of a procession--mostly because they are so long. While most of the procession is very solemn and serious, the end of the procession is less so. Whether this is to celebrate the fact that the nazarenos, the band, and the costaleros have made it through the 3 to 5 hour procession or if it's supposed to religiously represent the triumph of Jesus over death, I'm not really sure....



At the end of a couple processions I watched, the band started to play more upbeat music when the paso (platform) reached it's final destination--in this case, in front of the Ayuntamiento (City Hall). At the ding of the bell, I saw the costaleros (platform carriers) lift the paso as high as they could and make it sway back and forth to the applause of everyone in the crowd.

American Treats!

4 April 2012

Today turned out to be like Christmas in April for me!

First, I received a package from the United States from my aunt with some Easter goodies--but not just any treats! I got Girl Scout cookies, holiday M&Ms, my favorite tea, and some other assorted candies. It was really excited to get some American products that I just can't get here! Now to figure out how to not eat them all at once!

We also received our first packet of pen pal letters. Since today is our last day before spring break, I wanted to at least give the kids an opportunity to see there letters. They were so excited! I took some pictures of their faces as they read their letters. I wish that I could share them here, but unfortunately I can't.

Instead, I'll share a few of my favorite highlights from the American letters.

 Check out this letter! I love this kid because: a) he's heard of Spain before (which can be impressive for a 3rd grader in the United States); b) he's made the connection between the fact that the letter he received is from Spain and his favorite basketball player is Spanish.

Thank you, sports, for teaching kids geography!








Speaking of sports, I saw a number of letters that tried to teach my Spanish kids about sports in America. Some of the letters taught the difference between soccer and football. This one talks about football, xbox, and fishing.



We also had some letters that dealt with pop culture. These letters asked kids if they knew who Justin Bieber and Big Time Rush were. They explained that they were singers. Little do the American children know that the Spanish kids watch a lot of American TV dubbed in Spanish. So I'm sure there will be some great conversations that come out of this!

Semana Santa: Easter treats!

3 April 2012

Today was filled with the partaking of delicious Easter treats!

During the break for lunch, I went to a panadería in order to buy some torrijas--my last real opportunity before Easter is over. They can also be eaten during the regular part of the year as a special breakfast treat, but I don't think it's terribly common. Torrijas are sort of similar to French toast or bread pudding, but with more honey and cinnamon. Yum!






At school, the directora (principal) stopped me in the hall to give me my very own Easter mona. The mona is traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday or Monday. People go with their families on an excursión to the country, the beach, the castle, or a park to eat this treat.

There are two types of monas. The one to the left which has an egg in the middle and the one below which is the same but without an egg.









According to tradition, children take the egg from the mona and they break it on the foreheads of other children--which hurts and makes the poor kid feel like an idiot.

We ate my mona tonight since I'm not going to be around on Easter Sunday or Easter Monday, and I wanted to have the chance to share the mona with my friends here. Thankfully, the hard-boiled egg just got eaten, and no one ended up with a sore forehead! Though there were maybe a few sore tummies since we ate quite a lot of the mona!

A guide to Semana Santa... Nazarenos

2 April 2012

When I stopped by work today, some of my coworkers asked me if I had a chance to see any processions yet. I shared that I had managed to see the end of the procession for Palm Sunday. Everyone was curious about my reaction--since I've told them that we don't typically have religious processions in the United States and certainly not on the same scale.

I explained that I thought that it was pretty awe inspiring. I can imagine that hundreds of years ago (before the advent of technology) it was even more impressive, and I can see why a procession could inspire such belief in the people. However, the costumes/uniform that the different fraternities wear are a little chocante (problematic/uncomfortable) for me. Even though I know that the Semana Santa uniforms are not related, they are reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan costumes, and it can be hard to separate the two--especially given the violent history of the KKK in the United States.

However, I'm hoping that sharing a little bit of the history of these uniforms and their significance in Semana Santa can allow me to disassociate the two.

As I explained in my blog post yesterday, during Semana Santa, different fraternities are responsible for different processions throughout the week. One component of each procession is the fraternity's nazarenos--penitents. Each fraternity's nazarenos has their own uniform to distinguish them from other fraternities. They are differentiated by the color and style of their uniform.

However, most uniforms have a few basic elements--the capirote, the robe, the cape, and the footwear. The capirotes are the conical hoods that the nazarenos wear. The capirotes only have small eye holes in order to hide the identity of the nazareno. This is not because they do bad things but because they are supposed to humble in their repentance for their sins.

The colors of the capirotes and the robes varies from fraternity to fraternity. In this case, the capirote and robes are red for the Cofradía de la Sentencia de Jesús (Brotherhood of the Judgement of Jesus). The uniforms that have capes typically have the shield/emblem of the fraternity embroidered on it.










The footwear of each nazareno is different as well. Some go barefoot as a symbol of their repentance. Others wear sandals which are worn with socks. Lastly, some nazarenos wear regular shoes.

The nazareno below is from the Hermandad Sacramental del Santísimo Cristo de las Penas y Santa Mujer Verónica. They wear white capirotes and robes and blue capes. This fraternity was created in 1946.

Palm Sunday

1 April 2012

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Alicante! I've been excited for its arrival since I've heard a lot about Semana Santa in Spain and I know that it's quite different than Holy Week in the States. The region of Andalucía--particularly the cities of Málaga and Sevilla--is well-known for its Semana Santa celebrations.

I got my first taste of what Semana Santa is like during a walk we took before lunch in order to work up an appetite. We saw people walking around with some rather elaborate palms--which was when I remembered that today was Palm Sunday.

I remember when I was little and I used to think it was really impressive when people could make a palm cross using just one palm. However, I look at this little girl's palm, and I realized that the palm crosses that we used to make are like finger painting in comparison to the work of art that is the palm she's holding.






We could hear music coming from the Explanada. We decided to see what was going on and ended up stumbling upon a religious procession!

During Semana Santa, there is a procession everyday put on by different religious fraternities. Typically, the processions have a variety of components--the costaleros, the paso, the nazarenos, and the band.

In this video, you can see that the procession starts with members of the hermandades y confradías (religious fraternity--the term fraternity is perhaps a little misleading--since these organizations are made up of lay people who are responsible for events like the processions during Semana Santa and community service. Historically-speaking, fraternities were only open to men--though there are still fraternities that won't allow women to participate.) During the procession, the men dress in black suits (some military suits). The women wear black dresses as well as a mantilla.

As you can see in this video, there are about fifty costaleros (carriers) dressed in a white costume carrying the religious platform/float--which is called a paso.

The paso that they carry typically depicts Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or some religious scene. A single paso can weigh around 6,000 lbs! Since the processions can last around 5 hours, the costaleros have to be very strong to carry the paso. It's considered an honor to be chosen for the job.

Next come the nazarenos. These are members of the religious fraternity/brotherhood that have put on the procession. Each brotherhood has its own costume. I'll write more about it tomorrow.

Finally, there is the band. The band plays solemn music such as funeral marches or saetas (religious flamenco songs/poems).

I'll continue to write more about Semana Santa in Alicante as the week continues!

Cooperative Learning

30 March 2012

As I've said before, I'm very fortunate to be working with English teachers who give me the chance to practice a lot of different methods in their classrooms.

A new idea that I'm trying out in one of my classrooms is cooperative learning. Cooperative learning involves putting students into small groups and allowing them to share their strengths and abilities in working toward a common goal--in this case, learning a language. The group functions as a whole--meaning everyone has something to contribute to the good of the group and everyone works together to make sure everyone understands.

Cooperative learning has 5 main elements:

Positive Interdependence--this means that the group works as a whole. The group succeeds or fails together.

Individual Accountability--in spite of working in a group, each student has his/her own work to do. Students aren't just copying one another. In this case, students have individual tasks that they are completing in order to work toward one goal.

Face-to-Face Interaction--students get to talk things out and learn from each other.


Interpersonal and Small Group Social Skills--students learn important skills for how to work in a group--including leadership, decision-making, trust, communication, conflict resolution, etc... 


Group Processing--students get the chance to reflect on how things are going and discuss how to improve in the future. 

Little by little, I'm going to try to incorporate more cooperative learning activities.

However, to start, I have rearranged the classroom in order to foster more of a group mentality through face-to-face interaction. I have moved the desks to form groups of 4 or 5. Each desk within the group has a number on. This number corresponds to a responsibility.  

1. Pass out the folders
2. Pass out the pencil cases
3. Reporter
4. Supervisor
5. Wild Card

The key responsibilities here being the Reporter and the Supervisor. The Reporter is the representative of the group and is supposed to communicate with me about how everything is going in the group (if they have a problem, if everyone is finished with an exercise, etc.). The supervisor oversees how the group is working. He or she makes sure that everyone is doing his/her work and paying attention. The supervisor also makes sure that everyone is participating and contributing to the group conversation. 

As the students get accustomed to the new arrangement, I'm going to try to incorporate other cooperative learning activities. 

Huelga

29 March 2012

"Open the gates and seize the day. Don´t be afraid and don´t delay. Nothing can break us. No one can make us give our rights away... Arise and sieze the day!"

I can´t help but think of this song from the musical Newsies today--the day of the general huelga (strike) in Spain.

However, in all seriousness, workers from a variety of sectors (such as education and transportation) are striking today in protest of cuts that are being made by the current government.

Here in Alicante, a majority of the teachers at my school weren't at work today since they were protesting the cuts made to their salaries. Those that did come were offering minimal services. So most of the time the kids were playing outside or watching a movie.

I contemplated striking today as well. I completely agree with the reason that the teachers are striking, and I wanted to give them my support as I did with the manifestaciones (protests) that I attended. However, in this case, I felt that it was more important for me to go to work. I only get to be in Spain for this school year, and I want to aprovechar (take advantage) of the time that I have here. Even though most of my kids didn´t come to school today, I got to play games in English with the ones that did come and the kids ultimately got more one-on-one practice.

Other than the disruptions in the TRAM schedule, everything was fairly peaceful here. Unfortunately (for me), the TRAM also offered minimal services which meant that I got to work at little late. I had to choose to arrive an hour early or 15 minutes late. I didn't have a class first hour so I decided to go a little later.

That evening there was a protest, but no one was hurt--as was the case in bigger cities such as Barcelona and Madrid.

Multicultural Education

28 March 2012

Last week, I posted a little about an Easter presentation that I did with one of my 4th grade classes. I realize that the presentation (and the post) was very monocultural.

In order to redeem myself, I'm going to write about the multicultural spring presentation that I did with my 6th graders. Unfortunately, with some of my younger classes, I can't get into as much detail with them as I would like. It tends to be a struggle for them to just understand me. However, with my older kids, we can have better (and more mature) conversations about multiculturalism.

Today, with 6th grade, I shared a presentation about holidays that celebrate the end of winter and the start of spring--which is a common theme in most cultures. In order to keep them engaged, I turned the presentation into a game to review the past tense.

I'm a little ashamed of this game--not because it didn't work--but because it's a little lame. In between each slide of the presentation, I gave the class a verb to conjugate in the past. One person from each team had to go to the board to write the answer. The first team to write it correctly earned a point. I discovered that even though this game was kind of lame (in my opinion) the kids loved it! They went crazy for points even though the winning team didn't get anything.

I'm ashamed admit that two of the holidays I talked to the kids about are holidays that I heard of for the first time last year. Last year, I attended an event on my college campus which was a three-way celebration of three spring holidays--Carnival, Holi, and Purim. It was really interesting to see how much these holidays have in common--even though they have vastly different origins!

I started the presentation by talking about the Christian holiday of Easter--instead of Carnival.

Then, I described the Hindu holiday of Holi. Also known as the Festival of Colors, Holi celebrates the faith of Prahlad when he managed to escape being burned alive. According to the story, Hiranyakashipu tries to kill his son Prahlad because he thinks that Prahlad has betrayed him. However, none of Hiranyakashipu's attempts work. Finally, Hiranyakashipu tries to have his son burned alive by making him sit on the lap of Holika (who apparently can't be burned by fire), but Prahlad prays to Vishnu for his intervention. Prahlad remains unharmed but Holika is consumed by the fire. This holiday is celebrated with bonfires and people throw colored perfumed powder.

Next, I talked about the Jewish holiday of Purim. This holiday celebrates the story of Esther. Jewish people go to the synagogue on Purim to hear the recounting of this story. When the "bad guy's" name is mentioned, people make noise in order to drown out his name. According to the story, the king was looking for a new wife and chose Esther. At the time, Esther is in disguise and doesn't reveal that she is Jewish. However, the king's adviser, Haman, plots to kill all the Jewish people. In order to prevent this, Esther tells the king that she is Jewish in order to convince him to override Haman's attempt to kill the Jews. In doing so, Esther saves her people.

Vas muy veraniega...

27 March 2012

Vas muy veraniega... You're dressed very summery...

This is a phrase that I've heard about a hundred times in the last few weeks. In fact, there are days in which I feel like my clothing is the entertainment for the teachers' lounge. I get a lot of "Pero no tienes frío? Aren't you cold?" When I shake my head, I tend to hear, "Pues... es de Dakota. Well... She's from Dakota." (That's South Dakota. The better Dakota!)

The first time this happened, I hadn't really realized that I was dressed any different than everyone else. I thought that since it was warm out everyone would be wearing their spring clothing. However, I looked around the table and realized that everyone was wearing either a sweater or a jacket. I guess that is the spring "uniform." 

It's amazing the difference that where you grew up makes. I grew up in a state where it gets as cold as -20 degrees Fahrenheit during the winter. Most of winter hovers between -10 degrees and 10 degrees. So weather above freezing is cause to celebrate! In fact, on my college campus, it used to be reason enough to wear shorts and dresses.

However, in Alicante, the weather hardly gets below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's little wonder that 70 degrees is considered a bit chilly.

In the last couple weeks, it's been around 20 degrees Celsius (70 degrees for those of you who actually get the weather in Fahrenheit). To me, 70 degrees is quite nice. It's perfect, in fact! There's no way that I'm going to wear a sweater at the temperature. I'm going to wear a cardigan in the mornings but walk around in short sleeves by noon.

I'll be curious to see when my workmates finally decide that it's warm outside!

Sweetland: Holidays

26 March 2012

Even though I don't normally work on Mondays, I went to school for an hour to work with a group of 5th graders. During our class together we talked about holidays and what elements holidays have.

We started by brainstorming holidays and ended up with a list with a variety of types of holidays--such as Christmas, Easter, Constitution Day, Labor Day, Mother's Day, Moros y Cristianos, etc.

I talked to them a little about a few American holidays--such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents' Day.

Once we made our list, we talked about what these holidays have in common. In short, what does a holiday consist of. We decided that holidays usually involve time with family and a special meal/food.  Some holidays are religious and others are in honor of a special person/event. There are also holidays that have a special symbol/figure--like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. The favorite answer for all was that holidays sometimes mean that there is no school.

Next, I asked each student to invent their own holiday for Sweetland--using some of the things we discussed as being common to holidays. You can imagine the first ideas to pop out of their heads were holidays like Sweet Day and *insert student name* Day. We ended up with four options.

Healthy Day--since people eat sweets all the time, Healthy Day is the only day in which people can't eat sweets. They have to eat fruits and vegetables.

Sweet Day--as the name suggests, it's a day in which people eat sweets. Some of the kids complained that this was a normal day in Sweetland.

Big Sweet Parade Day--this has the same premise as Sweet Day, but it was described to me as "like Thanksgiving for Sweetland." All of the farmers bring people sweets for the year.

Pilot Day--this holiday honors pilots in Sweetland. On this day, people dance on the wings of the airplanes and they eat chicken wings.

We debated which holiday to adopt, and it came down to a pretty close vote. However, Pilot Day ended up winning.

Spring forward.

25 March 2012

Daylight saving time has caught up with us here in Spain! Even though it changed two weeks ago in the United States, we didn't spring forward an hour until today. This is a bit of a disappointment to me--since I've been enjoying only having 6 hours of difference between the United States and Spain. However, I do look forward to the sun shining later into the evening!