Thanksgiving....

Last Saturday I went out for drinks with a different student and met some of her friends.  They are very nice and it helps my Spanish practice!  They said they would plan different activities for me on the weekends so I experience the culture here in Tarazona and the surrounding towns.  It was a lot of fun.

On Sunday I went on a guided musical tour of Tarazona.  There is a renowned music academy here that we visited and some of the students played for us.  We were also allowed to go into some of the antique churches and in the last church, the Tarazona band played for us.  It was a 2 hour tour and at the start they asked us where we were from, I was the only one not from Spain.  Later as we were walking the tour guide asked me if I could understand her Spanish I said yes and she seemed pleased, she said she was trying to speak more clearly for me.  I thanked her and told her that I was here working at the language school, so now more people from the town know who I am.

This week I taught some Thanksgiving lessons, they were uneventful.  I had a crossword, bingo, a reading and a recipe game for all the levels.  Some classes were more enthusiastic than others, I don't blame the students for not wanting to hear about Thanksgiving, because unless they are in the U.S. or Canada they won't ever experience one.  I just wish I didn't feel so out of my element when the class takes a turn toward boring.  I feel like I can't recover and so it just gets worse and worse until the professor steps in to get us back on track with vocabulary or a question about what is typical in the U.S.  The most successful activity was the recipe game for sure because Spaniards had never heard or even imagined some of the typical dishes like sweet potatoes with marshmellows and green bean casserole.  It was fun explaining cranberry sauce as well, because they felt it should be a dessert, not go with turkey.  I of course said how I hate cranberry sauce as those of you who know me well already know anything that is like jelly, jam or preserves I detest, and they seemed to agree they would not eat it with turkey.

This week with how much I was talking, my throat had started getting sore.  Thursday into Friday was the worst but I am feeling better.  I'm glad to have gotten rid of the bug with a lot of sleeping and resting my voice.

I hope everyone at home had a nice Thanksgiving, I am a bad American and didn't even have a turkey sandwich!  The students asked me if I was going to cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner, I said are you kidding?  It's too much work! Add to that my sore throat and I was content with what I had, eggs and chorizo.