Just a rainy Wednesday

Last year, my life was a non-stop series of new experiences, adventures, discoveries, exploring. This fall, though, my life has been decidedly lacking in this department. This week though, a little change to my routine reminded me you don't necessarily need to travel to the other side of the world to have a little adventure. It started out like any other Wednesday morning, but a little rain sent me off on a series of little discoveries!

Like this little cafe I live next door to and walk past every day without ever entering. Facing a long, wet walk to my usual favorite, I decided to check it out. It was love at first sight: from the selection of traditional Spanish Christmas treats filling the display case to the Lacasitos (Spanish M&Ms) that came with the coffee or the smile with which the owner greeted me and directed me to the stack of magazines in the corner and offered to close the door if I was cold. Clearly a neighborhood favorite, there was a constant stream of abuelas and abuelos asking for "the usual," or "Has Pedro bought our bread yet?" or "Have you seen my wife? She was supposed to meet me 10 minutes ago!" I instantly felt at home. 

My neighborhood's best-kept secret

Next discovery, the Mercado de Abastos. Technically its not a discovery, since I've been here several times before, but only on weekends when all the stalls are closed. It's much more impressive when its actually open ;) Wandering in to look for some spices in the supermarket, instead I found stall after stall of fresh, locally grown produce, the biggest tomatoes you'll ever see, local wines, pastries and other baked goods.

I love how well I know Tudela now- I have my routine, my favorite cafés, I know the fastest way to get somewhere or where to get the cheapest beers, but it was so nice to be reminded that even boring little Tudela has a few surprises up its sleeve!

  

Beautiful, despite the grey November sky and a few raindrops

It's hard this week to be away from home for Thanksgiving: no family, no turkey, no pumpkin pie :( This Thanksgiving, though, I'm thankful for days like this, walking home through Tudela's casco antiguo, admiring the Christmas lights draped across the narrow streets and discovering new little surprises. I'm thankful I get to call this place my home.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

La vida diaria

Blog posts have been sparse this fall because, well, I really haven't been doing anything worth blogging about! So far my grand travels have been a night in Madrid, most of which was spent in in workshops, and a weekend in Barcelona, most of which was spent in a tiny twin bed in a closet-sized room with a terribly-timed cold. Not to worry, though, this time next week I'll be off on my next voyage: Morocco! In the mean time, here's a little look at what I have been up to, a typical day in my life in Tudela.

8 am: My alarm sounds. Yeah, 8 am might seem like "sleeping in" but Spain's been in the wrong time zone for the past 80 years so its still dark here when I wake up :( 

8:45: Begin my "long" commute to work: A nice 10 minute walk (but all uphill!). Coming home is a breeze though!

Ok, so I cheated and took a picture from last spring.
There are no flowers in November, but I'm not lying about the hill!

9-1: My first four classes of the day, with a half hour break for recess (usually spent having my "almuerzo" or morning snack in the staff room). Today I get to teach my third graders all about Thanksgiving, including how to bake a pumpkin pie and watching the Macy's parade. Note to self: watching videos about pumpkin pie when you can't eat it is not a good idea!

I spent the majority of my day going up and down these stairs...

1-3: Lunch time! I get two hours off, plenty of time to pop on home for lunch and a little relax time (or some lesson-planning if I've procrastinated/a nap if it was a rough morning!).Today, I run into my roommates on the walk home and decide to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and join them for a coffee in the sunny square.

3-5: Back to school for the last two classes (unless its Wednesday, then I get to take a nice long siesta). I'm in the fourth grade all afternoon today, doing Thanksgiving again. Today I learn a very important lesson: do not teach your "Countries of the World" unit at the same time as your Thanksgiving unit! The entire class mishears "turkeys" for "Turkish" and stares at me in horror as I describe how we kill and eat all the "Turkish" but that the President gets to pardon one of the "Turkish" and they get to go live in Disneyland. It takes a while to clear that one up. No kids, there is no cannibalism or mass genocide involved in Thanksgiving! Yikes.   

5-7: Descanso part 2. I have another two hours of free time before my night activities commence, plenty of time for a run along the Ebro River. Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm not a runner. At all. But since I live half a block away from a beautiful little park that runs alongside Spain's biggest river, it seemed a crime to pass it up. And getting through a tough workout is just so much easier when you can take in the pinks and purples of the clouds reflected in the still river as the sun sets behind a thousand-year-old Moorish bridge and the red clay hills surrounding Tudela.

7-9: 7 pm finds me either at the Official Language School studying French (Oui, je parle francais! Et vous?) or at a pupil's flat teaching conversation classes. Whether I´m discussing Catalan independence or the Spanish olive oil industry over a coffee or playing Guess Who and Go Fish with my kids, it's hard to really call it "work." French is a different story- some days the struggle of learning French in Spanish is just too much for my language-saturated brain to handle. But more on the trials and tribulations of multilingualism in another post...

Walking to my evening classes

9:00: Dinner time, finally. Today I make a delicious turkey and tomato grilled cheese and curl up in bed to study a little Spanish and read til I fall asleep.

And repeat until Friday arrives and I get a temporary reprieve from my little monsters ;)

Te comeria a versos

I guess it's a sign I'm becoming a Spain veteran, but when I was told I needed to go to Madrid to take a class, instead of a "Yay travel!," my reaction was more of the "Do I have to?" variety. I've lost track of how many times I've been to Madrid in the last 3 years, but let's say that after a ball park eight visits, a weekend alone in Madrid starts to lose some of its appeal, especially when you're on a tight budget, anxiously awaiting pay day, and expected to pay out of pocket for the trip!

Every cloud has a silver lining though, and in this case it was the discovery of the newest street art sweeping Madrid (and via social media, the entire country). Entitled "te comería a versos," a play on the Spanish phrase "te comería a besos" which means "I would kiss you" (literally I would eat you with kisses, but that doesn´t translate so well to English!), the movement swaps "versos" (verses) for "besos" and is spray painting other similarly punny/romantic/poetic phrases along the crosswalks of Madrid. 

Waking up in a hostel bunk bed, eating some toast and cold coffee as part of the complimentary breakfast, so I could spend my Saturday at workshops before embarking on a five hour bus ride back to Tudela, I needed something to brighten my day. And I tripped over the answer while crossing Calle San Bernardo. "No hay mejores brindis que los que hacen tus pestañas." My first sighting of Madrid´s newest street art.

"There are no better toasts than those of your eyelashs." 

That´s the beauty of te comería a versos, when you least expect it, as you´re going about your daily life, a little burst of poetry makes you stop and appreciate the language, before continuing on your treasure hunt across the crosswalks of Madrid in search of these words left under the cover of darkness. 

Although I only found 3 of them on my trip, I stole some pictures of a few of my favorites. Check out boamistura.com for more pictures and information about the project.

"Sleep less and dream more"

"The best hasn´t already happened, it isn´t still to come, it´s happening now."

A play on pésame (condolences):
My most heartfelt "kiss me." 

Forgive quickly, thank slowly.