Came for the Paella, Stayed for the Kids

Holaaa

I have a lot to catch up on, so lets just dive right in

During the past few weeks I had another volunteering activity where I went to a language school for elementary students to teach them about America. Before signing up, I was told that the school would be making paella for us..so obviously I couldn't refuse. For those who do not know, paella is heaven on a plate. It is a rice dish with a mixture of vegetables and different meats, commonly seafood, and it rules. Upon arrival, there was indeed paella, and it was indeed amazing. As for the actual volunteer work, I, along with a few other amigos, had the pleasure of working with a class of adorable four-year-olds. We began with a very dangerous task...waking them up from their nap time. Most of the kids woke up semi-easily, of course all of them had immediate confusion when they saw four Americans standing over them, but they warmed up to us pretty quickly. For others it was a little more difficult, which I completely understand, I think that I could sleep through an earthquake. One of the last little boys to wake up had quite an interesting reaction.. his teacher gently said, "Wake up, our Americans friends are here,". The boy sat up, stretched, and looked at me from across the room. I smiled, waved, and said a warm hello, and within seconds of looking at me he burst into tears! But no worries, he was just a little caught off guard, or maybe I just looked really scary, either way, he got over it. After all of the zombies woke up, we gave them a presentation on the differences between America and Spain. Keep in mind that these kids are four-years-old, and even though they are learning English, I think that every word we said was a little over their heads. So we decided to move onto something a little simpler, coloring the American flag! At first the kids were a little nervous, but by the end, they were running up to us and showing off their colorful flags-most of which had colors other than red, white, and blue, but hey, I liked the creativity. Then we painted the American flag on one side of their faces and the Spanish flag on the other and also had reading time. The kids were ecstatic, climbing all over us, bringing us a new book every two minutes to read aloud to them, it was precious. Before I knew it, it was time to leave, so we hugged and said our goodbyes, one boy even said "Goodbye, chicken-face" to me, too sweet.

Big yawn

One of the trips that CIEE organized for us this semester was to the beautiful city of Granada. My favorite site in Granada was the Alhambra, a massively complex palace. It was absolutely incredible, with its detailed architecture, elegant gardens and fountains, and the view atop the Alhambra is indescribable. We also had a lot of free time to explore the city on our own. There were a bunch of cool little shops and markets to roam around, and all the people were so nice and friendly. I even got to meet a few people from Sicily, which is where one side of my great-grandparents are from, so that was a wonderful experience in itself! Granada was without a doubt, one of my favorite cities that I have visited this semester.

Anddd on that note, I'm off! Hasta luego

Besitos

-Alex