Catching up (again!): this, that, and the other :-)

In early February, Catalan classes officially ended. The basic course, which was 40 hours of instruction, REALLY helped me with understanding the language! I was a little sad to end the classes, but it does give me four more hours in the evenings to do other things. Anyway, I just wanted to give a little summary of the last day.

We had a party, and since we’re such an international group, Marta (the teacher) suggested that we all bring a typical food from our countries. We were able to try all sorts of things that evening! Bread from Morocco, chicken in a fried dough from Colombia, food from Brazil, Madrid, Poland, Romania, Catalunya, Ghana, and more! There are definitely some characters in our class, so the evening was really fun. We compared certain words in different languages, received certificates, and some danced to music. :-P I managed to find some precious peanut butter in Valls with Olga one day, so I made PBJ sandwiches for everyone. They were a big hit! For most, it was the first time they had one. Anyway, it was a good way to end classes, and I left feeling like I made several friends. We still see each other in Montblanc on occasion, and I always get cheerful greetings. It’s been fun dabbling in a third language, and I’d love to pick up more some day!

On Wednesdays, the English teachers started attending an English course, and even though I’m a “native speaker” and not QUITE a teacher, the program directors said I could tag along and are looking into a certificate I could have at the end. Anyway, it’s been really great! The first session is taught by Josep Ramon and Melín, and they rotate every week. This is my favorite and most useful session. It’s all about how to teach foreign language (in this case, English) to children in preschool and kindergarten. We’ve gone through songs, games, stories, puppets, etc., and I’m always picking up new tips! The second session is taught by an American (woo!) named Ruth, and it’s really just language practice. Ruth and I talked through different options, and she was delighted to find out that I’d love to be a sort of “teacher’s assistant” in these sessions as well. So rather than sit around and pretend to be interested in learning English that I already know, I typically read things out loud, have dialogues with Ruth, etc. So my teaching practice continues to expand…this time with adults! I’m pretty busy on Wednesdays now, going straight from classes to the English course to tutoring, but it’s been nice. I’ve also made several friends in the English course as well, particularly a 24-year-old girl named Inés. Plus, a LOT of teachers from the ZER Conca attend the sessions!

Another thing I’ve added to my weekly schedule is an English/Spanish exchange. There’s a girl who’s close to my age and lives in Montblanc, Laura, and we started meeting in a café and doing a language exchange. It’s been great! She’s really nice, and we have quite a bit in common. We recently defended a topic in the target language, and for the first time that I remember, I was explaining in detail the pros and cons of homeschooling to her...in Spanish. Her sister is studying English in the States, so we both can relate to the time difference and trying to contact family overseas!

In January, there was a fira (fair) in L’Espluga, and I went with Olga and her son (and we ate lunch with her parents beforehand). It was fun, but…really, really cold! My favorite part was wandering around the market area, looking at different handcrafts and things. Pau enjoyed the rides, but that was when Olga and I basically stood around freezing. J I tried chocolate-covered churros for the first time there (an amazing invention!) as well as some sort of edible stick that I can never remember the name. Really, it’s just a plant or stick of sorts, and you just stick it in your mouth and suck on it. It reminded me of the sugarcane I tried in Mexico: interesting for about 3 seconds, and then it’s just like chewing a plant. Bleh! It was a fun day, but I did catch a cold from that evening!

In Valls, Laura’s hometown, they have a special celebration every ten years. And guess what? I was there on a 10^th year! I spend the day/evening with Laura and her family two days during that week, and both were a lot of fun. One evening was a procession, which was interesting at first, but…after the entire town walks in front of you, it gets a little boring. :-D But I was able to see several more Catalan traditions: dances, the human towers (several people climb on each other to form a tower), the gigantes (remember, those really big plastic type people you crawl inside?), etc. I also ate with Laura’s family, which includes her parents (her dad likes to practice English phrases the way my dad likes to use Spanish. Haha!), her sister and brother-in-law, and their cute little son. Quim, Laura’s son, and I have really connected well in the past few months. I understand Catalan so much better, and his Spanish has really improved, so we play all sorts of silly games together. He’s so fun! There was one day that week when Laura and Jordi went to see a friend whose grandfather had just passed away, so they asked if I could watch Quim in a park for about 10 minutes. It went well overall, and the trick with keeping Quim amused is to think of random games every 2 minutes. :-D If you know me and how I interact with kids, it’s not much of a problem! It was just different doing it in Catalan. :-)

The last day of the celebration in Valls was so cool! There was a fantastic fireworks display that had them shoot off at the same time as different music was being played (classical, Zorro theme song, etc.). The fireworks went perfectly with the music, and I really think it was one of the best displays I’ve ever seen. There was also part of a plaza that was all lit up, and it was the closest thing I had to the Festival of Lights all winter. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was nice! And Jordi, of course, always asks me these really philosophical and hard questions. Most are like, umm…I definitely don’t know how to answer that in Spanish, and I probably couldn’t do it well in English either! :-D Why does the US fight in so many wars? What did Obama do to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? What’s the best thing about my country? What’s the worst? How is it different from Catalonia? What are Americans REALLY like? What’s the population of Ohio? Is it big or small? How often do you get together with your family? What?? Sometimes only once a year?? Is that typical in the US? Do you have ___ or___in the US? How does it compare to Spain? Why do Americans eat so many hamburgers? On and on and on. :-D Really, I enjoy talking to Jordi, but wow…Laura says that he does that with everyone. :-D But I could hang out with that family all day!

In February, I had my second official training session (the first was in Barcelona in Novermber). This time, it was held in much less stressful (and closer) Tarragona. It went well overall, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the one in BCN. But...I don’t know. I felt like they repeat all of the same stuff we have in our handbooks. However, it was taught by Carmen Tinoco, a woman who lives in Reus and attended the first session of the English course, and I really like her. She’s always inviting me to spend the day with her in Reus and really has a heart for teaching and the program. The session wasn’t life-changing, but it was enjoyable!

And I’ve finally done some sight-seeing in Barcelona! I still need to do more, but one Saturday, Olga, Ines (the girl from the English course), and I spent the day in BCN. We had a specific goal in mind, and that was to get an idea of the best things to do when Amanda, my sister, would be with me in March. Now, I’m assuming everyone reading this knows, but just in case, Amanda came up for a week in early March! :-) The plan with her was to spend a day in Tarragona, go to Paris, spend a day in Barcelona, and then see her off to the BCN airport. So anyway, this BCN trip was partly for fun and partly to give me a better idea of what Amanda and I should do together. Ines, who lives in Tarragona and teaches in Montblanc, came along, and Olga and I first thought it would be...I don’t know...a little weird, but it turned out to be a lot of fun! The three of us get along really well, and we had a great day and plenty of English/Spanish/Catalan practice. :-) I also found out from that trip that Ines is from Valencia (a village outside of the actual city), and I asked about the fallas—a very famous celebration in Valencia. Before I knew it, she invited me to stay with her and her family for the weekend of the fallas! I kind of wanted to go but knew it was a week after Paris and didn’t know how much money I’d have for traveling. Suddenly, I was invited to experience yet another Spanish cultural event...for free! And with a nice person who knows what to do! :-)

But back to Barcelona! The three of us took the train from Tarragona to BCN (sane people don’t drive in Barcelona :-)), and throughout the day, we took a touristic bus to see the major sites, saw the monument to Christopher Columbus (you can go up the tower as well, which was really neat! The only problem was that Olga was kind of...um...freaking out about the height. :-P), the cathedral, one of the unique and fascinating houses build by Gaudí, walked around the Gothic neighborhood (one of the nicest parts of BCN I’ve seen so far), walked around the water/dock area, the rambla, ate tapas, etc. Wandering around Barcelona is a lot more fun with other people! :-)

Calçotada: yet another distinctly Catalan tradition! Calçots are a type of onion (onion? Yes, onion), and they’re only available certain times in the year. They’re said to come from Valls (where Laura’s from), but they’re eaten all throughout Catalunya...particularly the province of Tarragona. Anyway, it’s common to get several families/friends together for a calçotada, which is the closest thing to a camp-out I’ve seen. You don’t sleep in tents or anything, but you meet in a cabin or rural area and cook meat over an open fire, roast the calçots, talk, etc. Javi and Cati invited me to come with them and their friends (the same group of people I was with when we looked for chestnuts in October). It was good to see everyone again, especially Sylvia, the British woman who teaches English and lives in Tarragona with her family. One of her students is the girl I meet with for the language exhchange (Laura). Anyway, basically any occasion spent with Javi and his family is fantastic, and this was no exception. Cati doesn’t like calçots and suspected that I wouldn’t either. :-) Now here’s the weird part: they’re so uniquely shaped, you have to pick it up, pull off a layer of skin, dip it in Romesco sauce, lift it in the air, and eat the wobbly onion thing from the bottom to the top...it’s hard to explain, but basically, it’s a very hillbilly and undignified process. :-D Plus, your hands are completely covered in black soot! Haha! It sooo isn’t an Amanda (my sister) thing, but I found the whole thing bizarrely delightful. I didn’t mind the taste, actually, but it’s very mild. The real flavor is in the sauce. It was a fun evening with everyone, and I also enjoy that particular group of people because they speak Spanish the whole time. :-) Another thing I loved about that day was seeing one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. WOW!

Carnival: in early March, I went with Olga to L’Espluga to see Carnival. It was fun seeing it there because so many people I know were involved in the parade! Josep Maria (the boy I tutor) and his two sisters were in one float/group (the four seasons), their parents and Tere (one of the teachers) were in a Noah’s Ark float, and several friends and teachers were scattered throughout the village. It was basically a parade, and it was neat. I wouldn’t describe it as one of the most exciting cultural things I’ve experienced, but it was enjoyable. The best part was seeing people I know dressed up, and the worst part was towards the end when a group of guys dressed like babies were drunk and blocking our vision. :-P And there was confetti EVERYWHERE. Wow! My favorite floats were the four seasons, Noah’s Ark, a traditional Catalan one, and one with Greek statues. And three out of four of those won prizes! :-) Afterwards, Olga, her family, and I went to their house for a few minutes. And when I went back to Montblanc, there was confetti all over there as well. :-) It took forever for that stuff to get cleaned up! I’m still not a big fan of the whole carnival thing, but it was fun to experience it for a day.

Throughout my time here, I’ve gotten really close to Carmen Torres (Josep M’s mom). She used to teach in the ZER but now teaches in L’Espluga. Anyway, she’s the one who took me “behind the scenes” for the Christmas play and talks to me the most in Catalan. Basically, she loves Catalunya and its traditions, and she and her family are heavily involved in all things Catalan. And she LOVES to include me in the traditions and explain the details of what things are and why they do it. And I love it as well! :-) Her husband, originally from Montblanc, is part of the society that organizes Montblanc’s Medieval Week—one of the weeks I can’t WAIT to experience. The biggest day is April 23^rd (my dad’s birthday :-)), which is the day of Sant Jordi. There’s a famous legend in Montblanc that Saint Jordi saved the princess (during medieval times) from a dragon, and they reinact the whole thing in Montblanc on that day. The week in general is all things medieval—a medieval market and everything! Add the ambiance of an authentic medieval wall in an authentic medieval town, and it’s like...a history lover’s dream come true. :-) Anyway, the most important roles of that day/week are Sant Jordi and the princess, and every year, they have auditions for the young people to try out. The princess is always an 18-year-old girl, and Sant Jordi is always a 21-year-old guy. Carmen and her family invited me to be their guest in the very exclusive dinner and audition! :-) Tere was there as well, along with all sorts of “important” people from Montblanc. Seriously, this is something that very few people experience, and I’m most likely the first American who has ever attended! Dinner was neat and formal, and the evening was really interesting. However, it was looooong. The girls trying out for the princess recite the same passage twice (and there were 8-10 girls), the guys read a poem (there were only two guys :-)), and everyone has to answer several cultural questions about the legend, Montblanc, Medieval times, the Medieval Week in general, etc. It was a little embarrassing how many people didn’t know the answers, but the whole process fascinated me. So I knew who would be the main characters for the most famous week in Montblanc before most of Montblanc! :-) Another thing I did was play tic-tac-toe with Marta, Carmen’s 7-year-old-daughter, and some of her friends. It’s definitely not an event for kids, and there were several children of people who had to be there. The poor kids get so bored! I mean, we were there from around 7pm until 2am! Anyway, I used my Sarahness to amuse the younger ones. :-) Carmen also lent me some historical fiction books (in Catalan!) that talk about the history of Catalunya during the era. Finally, I just wanted to tell Blogland that I, Sarah M. Schulte, was on TV. :-) There’s a channel that’s from Catalunya and ONLY covers news about Catalunya (TV3), and Carmen sent me a link later on that covered the auditions and results from the dinner. And guess what? The first clip they showed of the evening was when Carmen’s husband (another Josep Maria), her other daughter (Clara), and I were looking at the list of people and discussing which ones we liked the best! Now, granted, it’s just the back of my head you see, but still...:-) Heh heh heh.

And I think that just about covers the non-school things I’ve been doing for the past few months! Coming next: a school update, my time with Amanda, and the fallas of Valencia!