This year, I am thankful for...

Wednesday and Thursday at school this week were AMAZING days. I have been really loving school for the past couple of weeks. I think that I am finally comfortable with being there and what my role is. I also think that the teachers are more comfortable with me in the classroom. After my lessons in 6th year on Wednesday, Milagros pulled me aside and told me that I am the best Auxiliar de Conversacion that the school has ever had. That made me so excited and so thankful for the opportunity to be in their school! On Thursday after my lessons, I helped Bea (my coordinator) make a blog for the school. On this blog, we are going to post English activities, vocabulary, videos and pictures of what is going on in the school. I am really excited about the new project and I can't wait to start posting. If you want to check it out the website is http://ceipelmanantial.blogspot.com.

Being away from family on Thanksgiving day was a bit difficult. I tried to get my dad to show me the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade over skype, but the computer didn't like being close to the tv and it kept freezing. Then, later that night, my brothers set up a screen so that I could be a part of my family's dinner. It was really nice to be included, but it was hard to not be there. We went around and said what we were thankful for and then I sat there and watched my family eat delicious food. Oh well, there are only 22 days until I go home and can be eating with them too!

Our beautiful feast!

On Friday, we prepared a Thanksgiving meal in our Spanish piso. Bridget made a beautiful, delicious green bean casserole. The onions on top were totally homemade by frying real onions- so take that French's! I made a sweet potato casserole that was probably the most delicious dish I have ever prepared in my life. Thanks to Bridget for pulling the sweet potatoes out at just the right time when the marshmellows were perfectly golden brown! I also made homemade stuffing that didn't cook exactly right in our oven, but still tasted delicious. Kathleen made mashed potatoes from "copos" (flakes), some delicious broccoli with garlic, deviled eggs and delicious roasted honey carrots. The only things that were missing were turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. We substituted the turkey with baked chicken breasts and gravy and the pumpkin pie with brownies. The meal turned out surprisingly well, we were so shocked because our oven tends to give us some problems sometimes.

Saturday, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so I went over to Parque de los Principes which is right down the street and sat in the sunshine and read my book. I am finally ALMOST done with the 400 page book in tiny font, in Spanish that I have renewed twice! I really like the book, it is just hard for me to read more than a chapter at a time because the print is soooo small and in a different language. After getting back from reading my book, Bridget and I prepared the leftovers and a few additions to our feast from the night before to serve to Fidel (for being such a great help with everything related to technology), Pilar (our neighbor who we have become very close with over the last week), Joanna (another Auxiliar friend), and ourselves. As we shared the meal with our friends, we explained the tradition of Thanksgiving and what we do to celebrate it. I shared that I am thankful for my family, my friends- especially the ones sitting around the dinner table, the opportunity to live and teach in Spain and my good health. Sharing this tradition with a new culture was very exciting and is exactly the reason why I came here. I want to share as many things about my culture with everybody here so that in return, they will share their culture with me!