Pretending to be a Big City Girl

It's been fifteen days since my last post. Time. Has. Flown. It took me a while to remember that (oh, right!) I'm not on vacation over here. Not yet anyway. My workweek in Barcelona is surprisingly hectic, even though I don't have a "real" job or take "real" classes.

My only free time is in the mornings--opposite of what I'm used to. I usually spend mornings reading, exploring my neighborhood, or sometimes going to the beach. That's early morning for me, by the way (before 10:00 a.m.).

This is what I see when I come out of my metro stop: Torre Agbar.

At 10:30 on most weekdays, I meet up with Estel, a Catalan woman who wants to brush up on her English before visiting an old friend in Seattle later this summer. We meet close to Las Ramblas (Barcelona's very touristy main drag with lots of restaurants, shops, etc.) and go to a different cafe each time. Estel pays me to just speak with her in English, and she buys my coffee for me too! I've been learning a lot about the Catalan culture, politics, and world view from our conversations.

This is Estel choosing some "peras de San Juan," the typical fruit of the summer solstice festival.

After coffee with Estel, I have just enough time to run home for lunch before my workday starts. Other meals are provided by my host mom, but I have to take care of lunch on my own. I've been making different types of lentil salad with veggies so I can have something healthy and quick.

I have to leave home nearly an hour before my Italian class starts because my commute on the metro (subway) takes so long. Commuting underground is somewhat depressing for me. Sweating in the un-air-conditioned passages, being smashed in the crowds, and not seeing sunlight makes the metro commute pretty uncomfortable for me. Good things: cheap public transport, I don't have to drive, and the actual trains are air-conditioned. I never have to wait long for a train, either. They come every two to three minutes at every station. It's a really efficient and well-run system, but I will be overjoyed when I'm back in Springfield and can ride my bike to school, work, and downtown!

My metro stop, off of the red line. I prefer to travel above ground...

Italian class is fun but challenging. I have class at a small language school with a few other interns from my program who already speak fluent Spanish and a couple of students from Barcelona also. Halfway through the course, we switched instructors from Marianna to Andrea (male name in Italian), who are both from Italy. I can understand about 75% of what the instructor says (no English or Spanish is spoken in class), but actually producing the language is what's most difficult for me. I usually end up beginning in Italian and replacing words I don't know with Spanish words. Though I've just learned the basics, I know I'll be able to use a little bit of Italian when I visit Venice in July. We've learned hotel and food vocabulary, so that's all I need, right? :)

I teach English in a town outside of Barcelona in the evenings. In order to arrive to my class on time, I have to leave Italian about ten minutes early. I take the metro and then a larger regional train that goes out to Terrassa, where I teach. The entire commute (walking+metro+train+more walking) takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes each way. I am LOVING my English class. I teach the very beginning level, and the program I'm working for prefers me to speak only English during class. This is easy when teaching vocabulary or phrases because I can show pictures or use lots of gestures to explain what I'm saying. Grammar is what's difficult to teach without using any Spanish at all. My students and I both got frustrated when we had our first day of a difficult concept in English grammar, but we worked together and figured it all out.

I'm very satisfied with my career choice...this internship is EXACTLY what I want to do with my future: move around the world and teach English.

My students are mostly enthusiastic and very happy to have a free English course. They are all immigrants from South America and the Caribbean. I have a few adolescent boys and then six women ranging in age from 25 to 60. If you've ever taught or spoken to a diverse group of students/listeners, you know what a challenge this is! I have to plan activities and teach in ways that satisfy all my students' needs according to their learning style, previous knowledge of linguistic concepts, and even their general interests. One of the older ladies get frustrated quite frequently, because the rest of the class understands a new concept and is ready to move on before she's even understood what we we did the day before. Having students who learn at different paces is frustrating for me too, but it's helping me learn to balance how much time I spend on instruction and clarification and when I have to just move on to the next topic.

Some of my students: Kevin, Eva, Cecilia, and Oscar.

After my two-hour class, I take the train back to Barcelona. Walk, train, metro, walk some more, and then I'm home by 9:30 p.m. My host mom makes me dinner, which I am very thankful for since I'm so tired by the time I get home. She is the only elderly woman I've ever met that does not know how to cook. Here are some typical meals I've had: rice and meatballs with canned tomato sauce, lentils and peas with tomato sauce, and boiled peas and potatoes with butter. Once a week, she makes a chef salad, so that's the best day of the week for me. She doesn't eat (only has packaged shakes that she mixes with milk), and my housemate usually gets home later than me, so I eat alone. If you know me at all, you know that one of my favorite things is to cook and enjoy food with the people I love. I'm very much looking forward to visiting friends during my travels next month and eating delicious, homemade food together.

Torre Agbar at night

Sometimes I get to talk on Skype to my boyfriend Adam, my parents, or my sister before I go to bed. It's difficult to figure out a time to talk when we're all busy AND I'm seven hours ahead of everyone. I spend time figuring out what I'll be teaching the next day in English class (actually one of the best parts of my day!) and then collapse into my little bed. Then it's up the next day to do it all over again!

I'm now in my last week of my time in Barcelona. It's gone by very fast, but I feel like I've taken advantage of my time here and have had some great experiences in and around the city. Next post: daily adventures in Barcelona! Enough of the boring daily routine already ;)