Week 18

By Aaron

Exploring the City
This week we celebrated Joni's birthday (November 30th) by going to our first movie theater in Spain.  In Madrid there are a surprising number of theaters that show films in the V.O. (Version Original, the language in which the film was shot).  Most places also feature Spanish subtitles, which sort of makes you feel like you are studying Spanish subconsciously while enjoying a movie in English.  And for some reason, many theaters offer extremely discounted tickets every Wednesday.  The new film from the Harry Potter universe, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," had a 10:45 PM showing at a theater off of our metro line, and we paid less than €20 for two tickets, two (absurdly) large sodas, and a giant thing of popcorn.  This would barely have gotten us into a movie in DC.  The showing was surprisingly full, and it was fun to see a new movie with a group of people emanating a lot of excitement.

Memorable Meal
The Saturday following our less-than-traditional (but still delicious!) meal on Thanksgiving day, we went to Ben and Cat's house for a day full of great food, conversation and the sights and sounds of children.  Several couples gathered, and we successfully avoided explosive political topics (though I was really hoping for some kind of role play where I could enact the musings of a fictionalized composite of stereotypical holiday family feuding).  Turkey is pretty difficult and expensive to acquire here, and so the bird of choice was chicken.  Perhaps my favorite part of the day was near the end of the day after everyone except Joni and I had left, when Ben and I took to the kitchen and created some top notch Thanksgiving tapas with the leftovers.  The excitement eventually boiled into talk of opening a restaurant.  What's more American than entrepreneurial dreams on Thanksgiving day?! 

Thanksgiving tapa

YUM.

There were 4 whole chickens. 4.

Happy Turkey Day!

Too many cooks in the kitchen?

We have many things to be grateful for this year, and one of those things is new friends :)

Who’s Coming to Dinner
This Sunday we hosted our "neighborhood cluster," an initiative started by the co-pastors from our church to connect church members living near each other.  While it wasn't exactly dinner, everyone brought a snack to share and it was close to the most amount of people we've ever had in our apartment at one time (nine).  It was nice to get the chance to talk with people who we might not otherwise have sought out, and learn a bit about the lives of those who came from America and put down roots in Spain - something all of our guests had in common.

En la clase
On her birthday, Joni took two no-bake peanut butter cookies with her to her 8-year-old student's house so they could enjoy a birthday treat together. After ensuring that Ignacio has no allergies to peanuts, she asked him if he had ever had peanut butter. He seemed confused, so she explained this magical spread to him, and he confirmed that he not only had never had this delicious treat, but that he had never even heard of it. Joni watched as he excitedly took his first bite of peanut buttery goodness in cookie form, and his eyes immediately lit up and he declared with awe, "peanut butter." He then proceeded to repeatedly recite the words "peanut butter," each utterance filled with a bit more excitement and joy. Within seconds, he was rolling on the floor in state of happiness, unable to contain his emotions of this new delightful experience saying, "peanut butter, PEANUT butter, PEANUT BUTTER, PEANUT BUTTER!!!" Ignacio, you're welcome. We will never understand why the United States seems to be the only place that truly understands the wonder of peanut butter, but maybe someday Europe will catch on.

Joni and I both utilized the magic of Create a story, draw a story in our classes this week.  In this game, all students begin with a blank piece of paper and write a sentence.  The papers are passed around, and then each student draws a picture depicting the sentence.  This pattern continues until the papers have made a full rotation.  My class had to start with a sentence using the word make, take or give (words commonly misused by non-natives).  It was an effective exercise and I think the students enjoyed it, though I must admit that Joni's class took it to the next level.  Her students played the game on her birthday, and were prompted to theme the first sentence around the day Joni was born.  Some of the results were not family friendly, but all of them were hilarious.  This is an excellent game to play in any language, and I hope someday I'll be up to the challenge of playing in Spanish.

Final Notes:
I returned to the language exchange this past week for the first time in a couple months, and it was a really rewarding time to practice my Spanish speaking.  It was a reminder of the importance of practicing, and I feel renewed in my efforts to self-study after completing our formal Spanish classes.  Here's hoping that in the coming weeks we can both be more intentional about putting ourselves out there and using our skills (at whatever level we've got!).