Thanksgiving

11.25.11 - Robledo de Chavela, Spain - Thanksgiving always makes me homesick given that combines my two favorite things in the world: good food and football. The last two years I've made an effort to impart the importance of Thanksgiving to Spaniards. In turn, they've nodded and smiled.

This year I set about brainwashing my students by teaching them the story of the first Thanksgiving and making them make hand turkeys. Most of them thought they were peacocks, so you probably have an idea of how successful I was. Be that as it may, we learned something dammit.

On Saturday (I know, I know, but they don't give you a day off in the middle of the week here), we celebrated with Americans and the ever present Eramus students. I think we horrified the French students with the amount of food, but the Spanish and Belgians seemed happy. At any rate the food was good (and the wine too!) and we left set for the Christmas season.

-Will

The making of a hand turkey.
We put them on the wall outside my class.
Libby carving the bird.
Mmmm, pie.

Yes, I have a photo of President Obama in my classroom. Yes, I dress him up for holidays. Got a problem with that?

TECS Review Weekend

11.21.10 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - TECS invited me to come down for Camp Review Weekend at the end of November and be a part of their annual conference on how to improve camp. It was barely 36 hours in El Puerto and the weather was terrible (rain and 45 degrees F), but we had a good time anyway.

-Will

Inge.
David Navarro.
Douglas.
Hiking the Garganta Verde.
Ali, bejeweled.
RuthAnna
Doug and Patrick
Ella's cupcakes.

Halloween

10.31.10 - Robledo de Chavela, Spain - We celebrated Halloween at CEIP Nuestra Señora de La Navahonda today and had a great time playing pin the legs on Frankenstein's monster, making candy spiders and mummies. I don't think the children descended to far into witchcraft. And yes, I did scare a few of them.

-Will

Mateo the Mummy.
Eloisa instructing the first graders on the pumpkin dance.
Jose eating.
Pin the head on Frankenstein's monster.

Fifth graders doing a mash-up of Thriller and the Monster Mash with zombie make-up. A classic.

Segovia

10.28.10 - Segovia, Spain - The fourth week of school I got to go with the fifth and sixth graders to Segovia. I know, my job is awesome. Stop.

I hadn't been, so it was a cool visit, though we didn't spend much time wandering the streets. I especially liked the aqueduct and the old Jewish quarter. We also made a stop at the Esteban Vicente Contemporary Art Museum (free entrance), which is worth a visit.

-Will

The kids posing in front of the aqueduct.
You can make out the cathedral and a photographer in the sunglasses. It was a great day.
Javi giving his best tour guide impression in front of the cathedral to open-mouthed fifth graders.
As I mentioned I found the Jewish quarter particularily interesting and plan to go back to try the sefardic food. This was a monument in the area.
We took a drawing lesson at the art museum. It was cool, but knowing the limits of my artistic abilities, I stuck to making photographs of kids drawing. So sue me.

Food Fair

10.20.10 - Madrid, Spain - My first week of school I got to go on a field trip. We went to the "5 al Dia" (five fruits and veggies a day) fruit festival at the Madrid Food Fair. The kids had good time and met the stars of Lazytown and got to make fruit and vegetable kebabs.

Exciting,

Will

Sara
Joel and Antonio make kebabs.
Unai skeptically tries a kebab.
I think Luna (middle) was tired of all the fruit. Or perhaps overwhelmed.
Kevin.

Update: The Missing Photographer

01.30.11 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain - I feel a need to post something here because I've been MIA these past few months. I actually didn't realize September was my last post, so it's worse than I expected. Apologizes. My computer went on the fritz in late November and I've been waiting on a CD to fix it. So this blog, my photo career and more and more my sanity is dependent on the Spanish postal service to deliver that CD and if you know anything about the post here, you'll know that's not a good thing.

Alas, to quell your baited breath for new posts, I'll direct you to a new publication of my TECS photos from last summer (most you probably haven't seen) online at: www.brightsparkspanish.com. TECS is starting a learn Spanish in Spain program and I provided promo shots of El Puerto and TECS for the web.

Until the benevolent mailman from above delivers to me so I can fix my evils,

Will