Quick Update on Life

Life here is still good. I think we are both getting a little antsy to get back home. We have some exciting stuff going on this summer. My sister is getting married and Ben's sister is having a baby! In the meantime though, we are enjoying life here and getting excited for some trips coming up. We are planning to go to Paris in June and when school gets out, one of Ben's friends from college, Andrew, will be meeting up with us in Rome. We will work our way through Italy and the south of France and then back to Madrid where we will fly out the next day to return home.

As we wait for these exciting fun things to happen Ben and I are just hanging out enjoying day to day life. The weather is getting weird. Even my teachers have commented on the fact that this is unusual weather for this time of year. There was a huge thunder and lighting storm the other night which was pretty cool.

The second week in May was the San Isidro festival, the patron saint of Madrid. The celebration kicked off with a big fireworks show in Retiro park. We headed over there after dinner with some friends. It was probably one of the best firework shows either of us have seen. Probably because we were standing directly under where they were shooting them off. There were times when we were craning our necks up to see and I thought the fireworks were going to fall down on us they were so close! Almost like I could've reached up and touched them. It was pretty neat.

The other week there was a teacher strike. I ended up not having to go in so I told Ben he should check with his school. The head of studies told him that one, according to Ben's contract he is not allowed to participate in strikes and two, the teachers at his school don't usually strike. So Ben showed up the next day and there was the head of studies and maybe two or three teachers. Obviously the head of studies was misinformed. He goes up to Ben and says "You have second grade." Ben says ok, which class? To which the head of studies replies, "Both of them." So Ben and 60 students all cram into one classroom. Now, Ben had been told that the teachers would be there so he doesn't have anything prepared. They spent the first hour watching Spanish cartoons. Since these students are 6 and 7 years old though they get bored pretty quick. So Ben tells them they can draw or do whatever they want. He spends the rest of the day trying to keep kids from drawing on the wall. At one point they got out the play dough and that kept them entertained for awhile. Needless to say, Ben came home exhausted!

I have also mentioned that I am in the school choir. We had our big concert the other week in Madrid. There were other choirs there too. It was some sort of competition and over the course of the month about 75 choirs participated. Our choir finished in the top 10! I had a solo in one of the songs and even though my voice cracked a tad in the performance at my school my voice was crack free for the real deal. It was a fun day. I met everyone at the concert hall in the morning and after we sang we got to stay and watch the other choirs. There were some pretty talented singers!

Ben came and saw the performance at my school because he couldn´t get out of school to see the performance at the competition.

Waiting to go in and sing at the competition.

The choir also sang at El Pinar's bachillerato graduation ceremony.

One of the auxiliars at Ben's school told him about a market that happens on the first Saturday of the month. It is more like a market where you go to sample wine, beer, cheeses and olive oil. There is some produce and meat but not a lot. We went with a couple of girls from my program. When you walk in, you can buy a wine glass with three tickets for 2 euros to sample 3 different kinds of wine. It was pretty fun! We also tried beet flavored ice cream which was of course, gross.