Viajeros nuevos

I am sad to see two of my roommates go back to the United States today but I am excited for the next round of international people! Two French travelers are coming today in 8 hours, and I am excited to get to meet them! Supposedly it is a middle-aged couple. I am going to take advantage of this opportunity to practice my French before I go to Paris in a par de semanas. My French is dreadful but I have my practice cds and book as well as a French to Spanish guide book to help me along. I have also begun stepping up my Arabic and have a native speaker to teach me every once and a while. It`s going very slow of course, I have a lot to learn! But yesterday my teacher (my friend Lisa´s boyfriend Adil) broke down the vowel system into a set of phonetic symbols so I can work on learning them. Reading is going to be my biggest challenge. I wish I knew about the French couple earlier, I just found out today. I would have intensified my French studies the past couple of weeks, because I have been slacking.

Yesterday I went to El Escorial with Caroline and Lauren. We were originally going to go to Valle de los Caídos también but it is closed indefinitely so we couldn´t even catch a bus to the area. El Escorial was neat though, a lot of art and history and beautiful architecture. And the bus ride through the mountains to the campo en las afueras de Madrid was amazing. And so was the return- flying down the curvy mountain roads at breakneck speads, just the way I like it. On another positive note, I got a student discount at El Escorial of about 50% off which just made my day! That`s all the more money I can save for Paris, el Sur de España, and Roma which are coming up soon.



I am also freaking out about la Copa Mundial. It starts so soon!! I gotta learn some fast fútbol knowledge (currently it is very basic) and get an España jersey! I thought we wouldn`t have much of a chance but people have been telling me that we might be poised to do well.



I am loving Spain!! The only downer is the lack of Spanish; it is difficult to practice. I mostly read on my downtime so I can learn more, with speaking it is harder to find companions other than when at the store, and that is maybe a few second "conversation". But yesterday I was excited to talk for hours in Spanish to Lisa and Adil at thier house. It made my week and I got so much practice. I would not shut up, I was so eager to speak Spanish with someone!

If I got more than two hours of sleep last night, I would go stay out later tonight, but as it is I think I will ave some fun during the day and then turn in early so I can wake up for Rastro tomorrow en la Latina. It`s the Madrid open air market that happens every Sunday morning. It is supposed to be huge but it gets too crowded to move around 10:30-11am so I was gonna catch the metro around 9 to try and get a solid hour of some decent shopping in. I hope there are some good peaches there tomorrow!

Primer día de trabajo

Well, I have finished my third day of work. The first day was just me following people around and taking notes and poking my head in some workshops. I learned a lot. In order to get papers, a person must demostrate 3 years of residency here and have a work contract. That is the minimum, and most people are here for longer. They cannot leave the country either because then they cannot get back in, so many are here for years without seeing thier family. ACOBE offeres services to people with and without papers trying to get the card that makes them a legal citizen. In Spain, a non citizen is only entitled to 2 things: healthcare and education for minors. And with la crisis of the economy, things are getting tougher for immigrants to make ends meet. Discrimination is high as well.

Yesterday, I was set to work translating thier entire website. I worked for hours! It is hard to translate, frequently there are words in Spanish that can yield multiple English words and vice versa. Occasionally, I would have to ask someone to read the sentence and give me a few synomyns or describe that word in other words a few times so I could pick the English word that I liked the best. And I also had to explain the English words sometime in Spanish and try to explain thier slightly different meanings in order to figure out exactly which meaning they wanted to convey to the public. I still have work to do on the website, thankfully I got a translating break today. I am not a big fan of translating but it wasn´t as bad as I thought it would be. I just hope I do a good job. They are always shocked when I tell them how old I am. I cannot wait to be 20 so people won´t look at me like a baby anymore.

Today I shadowed some more departments. At ACOBE, many different services are offered: there is a legal department of lawyers, a phychological department to counsel people, a cultural department to help with immersion and retaining old cultures, and a labor department to help with employment and consiguiendo trabajo and also to make sure that people´s rights are protected in these jobs. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings are huge because we have a line outside of people looking for the services offered at ACOBE, which is always completely free to the public. They will line up for a while until we open.
Today there was a seminar (there are several a day everyday) that I attended. The leader got a call and stepped out and told me to entertain everyone. I was freaking out for 10seconds and then pulled it together and talked with everyone, telling them a bit about myself and asking about them. They had many questions about the United States. Afterwards, I felt really good. I do not know what happened, but the fear melted away and Spanish just started flowing out. Today I learned a lot and was really happy with how the day went. Yesterday I was mostly alone translating, but I don´t have my own desk so I bounced around several times. Today I got to see a lot more of how things functioned and talk and be more vocal and assertive. I really liked that. And I like what my job does and how it helps people. It has opened my eyes a lot. I will write more on what I have learned later one though, I have a tendency to write way too much in these blog posts! I know that I am teaching English to children in July. At first I was upset to teach English and translate, but I love kids and I will only have one or two classes a week so I will suck it up. Besides, English is one of the reasons I got hired so I have to deal with it sometimes at least. I am excited to see what next week will bring me at work.

Tomorrow is Corpus Cristi, a Spanish holiday. So I do not have work and I was originally going to travel in the South of Spain but I got my Mediterranean Vacation last weekend so I will save that for later. I can´t go a weekend without traveling though, I love it! So I will go on a day trip or 2 (the price is really cheap too!) to some areas near Madrid. I´ve checked off a chunk of my travel list but I still have a lot left! I am going to London the second week in July, Paris sometime this month, and Rome sometime this month hopefully. Also Granada, Sevilla and Cordoba in the South of Epaña. Morocco will be in late July, and then I hope I can hop over to a few more places in Italy (Venice, Le Cinque Terre, Florence) but I don´t know how far in debt I can go over here! So I will cross that bridge when I get there. But I am only young once. I don´t need money and sleep, I can get that working at college again next year! Though I don´t think I will sleep until I am dead.

Tonight I am going bar and club hopping with my roommies! Then tomorrow I may do some outside work on translating that website so I don´t have to translate at work on Monday and can shadow and go to more workshops.