Hope Community

My close friend Heather Nunan has started a project with the organization Hope Community as she has been studying at the University of Ghana. Below is a link to the website. They are working to collect school and art supplies, connect pen pals with the students, and raise money.

See website and read more about their mission!

http://hopehome.info/Hope_Community_Chapel_Orphanage/Welcome.html 

Hope Community Chapel Orphanage is a foster home for boys whose parents have mental and physical disabilities that make them incapable of caring for their children or are no longer with us. The orphanage has taken the boys off the streets, providing a home for them where they are able to live and learn. However, although the home does more for these kids than is imaginable on the streets, their opportunities are minimal. Many of the children at Hope Community struggle in school because they are unequipped with the necessary supplies for learning. The environments they have come from as well as the one provided for them in the orphanage are not conducive to creativity or inventiveness. We want to provide these boys, and the other children who wander in from the neighborhood, the chance to learn in an encouraging and opportunistic environment. We are hoping to provide the kids with the structure and attention necessary for this, but in order to do so we need a little help. 

Country Love

El Templo de Debod at sunset

I have met people that came to Madrid, and loved it so much they never left. They say that Madrid has that effect. You fall in love with the city and never go home. Well, I loved Madrid. I certainly intend to visit again. But I could never stay here forever. I love where I come from too too much. I have had such a wonderful experience, I have learned so much and met amazing people. There are two things in particular that I see have changed in me since I arrived. The first is that I now know wheresoever in the world I go, I will always be able to find wonderful friends and have plenty of adventures. The other is a new feeling of pride in where I come from. I don't know that before I came being American really meant that much to me. If everyone around is American you forget what it means and why it is so special. I love telling people in Spain that "Soy Americana". I live in the best country on earth and I am so excited to come home!

Hacer la Maleta

I am packing. It is not going well. I did not leave myself enough room. Also, there is so much I did not use. In all fairness how was I to know running shoes only have utility in scorching Madrid if you wake up before 6am? I used them one time, needless to say I only made the mistake of waking up that early once. And then there is the hair dryer, what was I thinking?! I have curly hair that I let air dry 6 out of 7 days in Seattle and it is 30 degrees hotter here; I never used it. But then there were other things I almost did not pack and used almost everyday. Like my Rainbow flip flops, best travel shoe ever. Alex was a sweetheart and offered to help me pack. Which I guess means play dress up. Here he is in my sun hat with my handbag and passport.

"A traveller has a right to relate and embellish his adventures as he pleases, and it is very impolite to refuse that deference and applause they deserve."

-Rudolph Erich Raspe

I wish I had known this before I started writing my blog, it would have been a lot more interesting.

Sangria

 

Ingredients:

2 oranges; one sliced; one juiced
2 lemons; one sliced; one juiced
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Triple Sec
1 bottle of wine
Ice

Directions:

Combine ingredients, mash with wooden spoon, chill and add ice.

 

El Papa

 Friday night in front of the Town Council building

The Pope came to Madrid last week for World Youth Day (JMJ). The word in Spanish for "Pope" is "Papa", which I still do not understand because it means "potato". About 1 million extra people have been flooding the streets. They are from all over the world and they parade around with giant country flags, matching backpacks and neon explorer hats. The metro has been unbearably crowded, stinky and sweaty all week. They had to organize with the city to sleep in parks and school playgrounds because there are simply not enough accommodations for all of them within the city. I liked them and thought they were all very nice until they started chanting and having spirit wars in the metro. Some of them tried to stop me and ask for directions in Spanish because the impatience on my face indicated I was local. Despite the inconvenience of crowds, the one thing I did love about the coming of the Pope was that there were nuns all over the city, and there is nothing in the world sweeter than a nun.

What I am excited for

I am leaving Spain soon and here is what I am excited for at home:


-Rubber Spatulas. They have not really hit it big here yet. I typically flip my eggs with a knife and a spoon and enjoy my breakfast peppered with flakes of Teflon.

-Shaking hands. The first person I am introduced to in the United States is going to get the best hand shake of their life. Double kissing cheeks with strangers is cute the first couple times, but do you really know where their cheeks have been?

-Sitting in a restaurant and automatically being brought a giant glass of ice water. Because no one ever orders it otherwise, I mean honestly, it is 97 degrees, does nobody else need water right now?

-American outlets. Really I have no problem with the European outlets themselves, I personally find them very aesthetically pleasing, however the adapters I have to use are evil. I am always getting shocked by them. And once I was fully electrocuted. I could have sworn I was knocked clear across the room. The benefit of that was that the headache I had at the time was mysteriously cured.

-Hamburgers, steak, and anything else that requires a grill

-My Sonicare toothbrush. Why I decided not to bring it is beyond me.


...and things I will miss:

-The beautiful streets and buildings

-The Madrid metro

-Immaculately dressed Spanish children wearing toddler sized tasseled loafers out to dinner

-The snowflake setting on my aire acondicionado

-Tinto de verano, the most delicious drink in the world

-The calamari

-European escalator efficiency

Espuma

In Mortil as part of a yearly festival there was a kiddy foam party in a central plaza at 11am. This is just the aftermath when they were hosing everything down. All of the kids I saw leaving with their parents were soaking wet and crying. This is because most of them had lost their parents and their chanclas (flip-flops) in the 4+ foot foam at one point or another. I guess they start them early in Spain.

Paella

At first I was unimpressed by Spanish paella. It seemed like an aquarium dumped into orange rice. But I have become rather fond of it over the past months. In Madrid you can even order it to-go. For lunch one day there was a pizza box on the counter, I opened it to find a metal pan filled with rice and tentacles. They let you keep the pan and everything! Sadly I never learned to make it, I could always look for a restaurant that served it in the US but I doubt it would compare to Abuela Carmen's recipe.

Musica

Alex loves music. His parents make him mix CDs for the car. He sits in his car seat and snaps his fingers as he attempt to sing along. His favorite artists include Shakira, Beyoncé, and Katy Perry. Sasha's Spanish kids also loved to sing along but struggled to understand English lyrics. They simply did their best to fill in the gaps. For example, in Kesha's Tick Tock the line really says "I'm talking pedicure on our toes, toes" but the little girl would sing "lettuce in my toes toes". And for Michael Jackson's Thriller, the little boy would replace one of the lines after "Thriller night.." with "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas"

Alejandro's favorite playlist:

Waka Waka --Shakira 
Meet Me Halfway-- Black Eyed Peas
Viva La Vida-- Coldplay
Unidentifiable Spanish Song No. 1
When Love Takes Over-- Kelly Rowland
Eres Tú --Mocedades
Broken Strings--James Morrison
Hot N Cold-- Katy Perry
Higher--Taio Cruz
Happy--Leona Lewis
Russian Roulette -Rihanna 
Rain--Mika 
Unidentifiable Spanish Song No. 2 
Human--Killers
Halo--Beyoncé
The Man Who Can't Be Moved--The Script  
Desde Cuando [Letra] -- Alejandro Sanz
Alejandro-- Lady Gaga

Survivor

One evening in Motril the wind was so strong on the beach we had to put the sun umbrellas sideways as shelter and use the towels for warmth. Sometimes I watch reruns of Spanish Survivor or the reunion special (spoiler: Rosa wins) but I never thought I would really get to live it, how exciting! Before we went home at 11pm we swam in the sea. (side note: this is not a common Spanish thing, staying late into the night on the beach. We were the only ones for miles, or kilometers I guess.) Swimming at night is magical, I have not done it since I was little. It was definitely a favorite experience in Spain.

Taste of America

There is an American store in Madrid that sells primarily Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker products. They also sell muffin tins, measuring cups and cereal. That sounds silly, but America really is far superior in baking delicious treats.

I bought marshmallows and pumpkin pie filling. Both are virtually impossible to find elsewhere. And Sasha bought marshmallow fluff and Skippy peanut butter. She was devastated to find that the Fluffernutter recipe was no longer on the back of the jar. She has a great memory, so she has nothing to worry about:

1.) Take one slice of bread, spread with marshmallow fluff

2.) Take another slice of bread, spread with peanut butter (smooth or chunky)

3.) Put slices together, and enjoy your Fluffernutter!!!!

I stumble through life

I just recently learned that blogspot has a statistics feature that shows how many page views your blog has and from what countries. I got one page view from South Korea. Now I am very motivated to see how many countries I can get on my map in the next three weeks. If you click the "stumble-it" at the right of the page hopefully it will show up on StumbleUpon.

I first heard about StumbleUpon when a guy asked me if I stumbled, and said "sure, all the time, sometimes I feel like I just stumble through life.." I went on like this until the confused look on his face indicated that we may not be talking about the same thing. Not my proudest moment.

"Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat."

-Fran Lebowitz

It's a tent OKAY!

Beth and I went to Toledo last week. We were convinced it would be a lot of fun to camp. We did very minimal research and found a camp site with electricity, showers and a swimming pool. Once we arrived at the train station in Toledo we realized just how far away the campsite was. We adjusted our plan and hiked with our bags and tent up to the town center and found a hostel. It was lucky there was no wind that day or the tent would have caught some air and blown us away. It looked like part if a turtle costume and drew a lot of attention. The hostel was great, the staff was amazingly nice and it was very comfortable aside from the 100% acrylic sheets that I worried may melt to my skin during the hot night. I also received a mosquito bite on my forearm that later swelled to the size of a silver dollar pancake. Toledo was very charming and we got a great panoramic view from the top of the library. We returned to Madrid the next day. At the train station we gave directions to two guys from New York, after a five minute conversation one asked me if we were from England. Well, Beth is Scottish, so maybe that just threw them off. I still don't see how my accent could really be mistaken for English. I need to come home, I am losing my roots.

Dinner Last Night

My friend Sam considers all foods that are not white to be "creepy". So I know she will really appreciate this. 

Ingredients:

Boiled potatoes
Hard boiled eggs
Green olives
Artichoke hearts
Pickled asparagus
Canned pepper
Tuna fish

Put that all in a bowl and drown with 2-3 cups of mayonnaise.

Que bueno!

P.S. I was exaggerating a little bit, Sam also eats hamburgers

Flamenco

I went to a Flamenco dancing performance with some of the other au pairs. It was very fun, they did a little ballet and it was similar to river dancing and tap. Most of the male dancers were the Patrick Swayze type but there was one, who both Rebecca and I thought looked like McLovin, who stole the show. He was smaller than everyone else but he made up for it by making every twirl and kick extra spicy. He also wiggled his eyebrows, winked and puckered his lips at the audience through the whole show. Unfortunately I had to sneak pictures and could not get our Latin McLovin from a good angle :(

100 MONTADITOS

100 Montaditos is a restaurant that offers a menu of 100 different sandwiches. This sounds great except that I think they ran out of ideas somewhere in the high seventies. This is the chocolate sandwich. If you can call it that. It is a Hershey bar in a mini loaf of French bread. On Wednesdays they have a deal where if you buy a sangria for a euro you can get any sandwich for a euro. Naturally it is chaos so they have a bouncer mind the door. It is very difficult to get tables so once you have one you don't leave it, no matter what. Today we arrived early 12:30 pm and stayed until almost 6:00. We took turns walking around the block to get leg circulation.

My Bus Ride to Motril

I forgot to write about this, I took the bus to Motril last week. Two seats up and one seat over there was a couple who made out aggressively for the whole 6 hours. Not an exaggeration either, I knew they were still going at it because I herd them the whole way. Very loud kissers. I felt so bad for the poor fellows who picked the seats directly behind them. Had I been even a seat closer I would have more seriously considered if I could translate "get a room" properly.

Luckily, the man I sat next to was very interesting. His name was Alberto, he grew up all over the world, he has lived in Buenos Aries, Cairo, Boston, Madrid and a few others I cannot remember. He took a road trip from Boston Massachusetts to Peru in a VW van. Right now he is a film maker. He is working on a documentary about a Sikh Indian population trying to immigrate to Spain but are somehow now living in a forest in North Africa. As you can tell I struggled to follow all of the details. The picture I took looks quite miserable but the drive was actually quite pretty through the Sierra Nevada mountains.

El Sur

I spent this past week in the province of Granada on the coast with my family. We stayed in their summer home with Leticia, Gustavo, Alejandro, Leticia's parents, her older brother Francisco (Tito Paco) the P.E. teacher/discoteca bouncer, her younger brother (Tito Luis) and his very pregnant wife Sylvia. We visited a different beach everyday and spent time with her mother's five siblings, their children, and their children's children. Alex preferred to play with his cousins; I hate to admit it but it is a bit hard on your self esteem when a six year does not want to play with you, so I just read my book on the beach. I had a lovely time. I very much like the south of Spain. People are terribly nice. However they are completely impossible to understand. They basically slur the last half of every word. Especially if it ends in "s". "Adios" become "adiyo-" and "vamonos" becomes "vamoneh.." To me it sounds like Spanish with a swollen tongue and a lisp.

Alejandro's second cousin once removed, Daniela and me at a restaurant in Cabria Beach

“"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called”

-Winnie the Pooh

Accents

When I first arrived here my family told me I spoke Spanish with partially an American accent and partially with a Mexican accent. Which is very amusing to me :) Since, I have been working on my Castilian lisp. It is not on every "s" sound. Only the "c" and the "z". "Gracias" is pronounced  GRAH-thee-ahs. I have the tendency to lisp every "s" sound anyways. The Spanish are fairly arrogant about their accent as well. When I pronounce c's and z's the way I was taught in school, I am told I am speaking incorrectly. Which always suprises me a little bit. I do not consider different accents wrong. No one would ever tell someone they pronouced something wrong in English just because they used a British accent.

A favorite dinner game with the family and all aunts and uncles is called Kate says something really fast in English and everyone else guesses what it is. If no one can get it, the game turns into Kate says something really fast with a British accent and everyone else guesses what it is. Just as I have learned Spanish from the Americas they have learned European English. It is sometimes easier for them to understand me with an English accent. Fortunately, my Spanish family can't tell how bad my accent is, but in restaurants and other public places I always look around first to make sure there are no English speakers because I know I sound ridiculous. One time we tried to play Everybody say something really fast in Spanish and Kate guesses what it is, but it was not really that fun.

Hacer Cookies

The difficult part about converting an English recipe into metric units is that we measure in volume and everyone else measures by weight. And the destiny of sugar is not common knowledge.

How to make chocolate chip cookies in Spain:

Preheat oven to 176.6 degrees celsius. (tip. Remove pans and dishes from oven before hand, remember you are in a very small European kitchen, the oven doubles as storage.)

240g butter, softened
100g granulated sugar
260g brown sugar
2 eggs
12.5 mL vanilla extract

300 g flour
A little less than a small spoonful of salt
A small spoonful of baking powder
A small spoonful of baking soda

Chocolate chips

Brown sugar here has the consistency of kosher salt. So I suggest grinding it for about 20 seconds in your awesome multiple purpose European food-processor-blender-machine. Mix wet ingredients and sugar. If you do not have a bowl big enough sauce pans work fine. Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl. Note that here baking soda is sold in a box with two different packets inside. One is sodium bicarbonate what we think of as normal baking soda and the other is very acidic and I think comparable to cream of tartar. DO NOT put the acidic one it your cookies. They will taste awful and you will be forced to throw them out (which I did yesterday).

Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 9 min.

Thank goodness we all use the same units for time right?! What a nightmare.

McSpain

There are telephone booths on the sidewalks in Madrid that advertise McDonalds. Arrows point in the direction of the closest location with the amount of time it takes to walk there. My friends Sasha has been convinced for two months that the main function of these telephones is to preorder your food from a block away, and then walk to pick it up. She has been telling her parents in Toronto all about them. Also the McPollo is a very popular menu item. No one else thinks these direct translations are as funny as I do. McPollo... Get out of here! That's hilarious!

Donni Q

My host family took me to the town Valladolid, we watched a Catholic procession and saw one of the oldest universities in Spain, it was established some time within the 13th century. The village was also home to Miguel de Cervantes, author of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. In the picture above I am sitting in front of La Casa de Cervantes with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the two main characters. This author was the first to use such phrases as "a wild-goose chase" and "the sky's the limit." I am really hoping to read a book in Spanish this summer. Reading One hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish along side the English version was overly ambitious on my part. What I really need is the Spanish equivalent of a Magic Tree House book.

Ella es mi novia

Last weekend I met up with about a dozen other au pairs living in Madrid. There were some from the U.S., England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Poland, France, and Slovakia. We all went to the Madrid Gay Pride Festival, there were outdoor concerts and people dancing in the streets all night. In the picture we are sitting at the edge of the fountain in Plaza de España. Sasha my Canadian friend and I held hands all night hoping we could convince people we were girlfriends. None of the girls seemed to believe we were really lesbians but we were convincing enough that we did not get attention from the strait guys, which was a nice break. Men in Spain are not shy and do not lack self confidence. If they ask you if you want to dance or if you would like a drink and you say no they immediately demand to know why. "Am I not handsome enough? ...Tell me I am handsome". Maybe this is just me, but the moments following rejection seem a little early to be fishing for compliments.

Take a left at the pineapple

On Wednesday my Scottish au pair friend Beth and I ventured to Buitrago del Lozoya to find the closest natural water feature in the greater Madrid area. Beth discovered the river by typing "water near Madrid" into Google and found information on yahoo answers. It said there was a river about an hour and a half North of the city... swimming in the river was not exactly encouraged but the local government did not care, however they did advise avoiding run ins with the Gaurdia Civil. As temperatures crept into the hundreds Beth and I decided to take our chances. We asked around town for directions to get down to the river to swim. People were not very helpful and usually directed us to the town pool. One man was very nice and did give us very specific directions to the river. He said to go strait down this road and then take a left at the pineapple (Beth heard "handstand" so clearly we both need to work on our Spanish a little more). We eventually snuck through someones backyard and traversed our way down to the river. We got to swim under a 14th century castle. When we got back to shore we found that we must have dropped our bags and lunches somewhere near an ant hill. I was mostly disappointed that they had got into my bacon-queso flavored bugles (my new favorite Spanish food). The ant infestation had somewhat spoiled our picnic plans so we headed back into town for some sangria. As we were leaving it started to hail mento sized chunks of ice. The temperatures dropped to 50 degrees and within moments we were soaking wet and freezing. We found refuge under a bus shelter. And no worries neither of us were seriously injured by the hail, though there were several that hit me in the eye. On the way home it was coming down so hard all the cars had to pull to the side of the road because you could not see through the windshield. After a full day of swimming, ants, and highly unusual precipitation we returned to an unbearably hot Madrid.

Forest Fruits

The Spanish word for berry is frutas del bosque. This translates directly as fruits of the forest. The other night we enjoyed some delicious forest fruit ice cream. I have no idea why it is so funny to me but I laugh uncontrollably every time I see the carton. 

!Olé!

I went to a bullfight, corrida de toros "running of bulls". It was a smaller version than the famous Plaza de Toros in the center of Madrid. It had younger smaller bulls. Almost all towns in Spain have an arena for bullfighting. I went with Leticia and her father to the arena in a suburb where her parents live. In some ways the sport is very disturbing but it is easy to see why so many consider it an art form because the "toreadors" move with a very unique style and posture and it is amazing to see how they can manipulate the direction of the charging bull. It is overly cruel though because the toreadors stab the bull to aggravate it and make it more aggressive. It is also very dangerous for the bullfighters because even a small mistake can leave them to be trampled or gored. There was a woman next to us who would turn around every time a bullfighter fell to the ground and would shake her handkerchief and say "His poor sisters! His poor mother! His poor wife!" At the end if the fight some horses would carry the body of the dead bull out of the arena and the crowd would cheer for the toreador. They would shake handkerchiefs in the air and scream !Óle! if the thought he did a good job. If the  president of the bullfight agreed the toreador would get to keep an ear of the slaughtered bull, two if he did really well, and the tail too if he really hit it out of the park. Bovine appendages are not my idea of good prizes.

"Homesickness is... absolutely nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time... You don't really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don't have, or haven't been able to find."

-John Cheever

Last Weekend

Last weekend I spent on the East coast with the Sobrino-Morito family, including Leticia's brother, Louis and his wife Sylvia (who also happens to be the most adorable pregnant lady I have ever seen). Doing anything in a timely manor is a struggle. We would leave for dinner each night at 10pm. I knew to expect the laid back, late night culture but I don't think it would kill anyone to go about things with just a sliver of efficiency. Mostly I feel bad for Alex, they keep him up very late and do not have him nap the poor kid. We drove back last night and arrived home around quarter to two. Alex was very tired and every time he woke up in the car he cried. I don't blame him either, I sort of felt like crying too. I am thinking about using this as a bonding point for us. You know the way siblings do? "Remember when they drove us home in the middle of the night in terrible traffic after feeding us coke and potato chips for dinner? -Yeah, mom and dad really suck."

We were staying at a resort near Benidorm. I can't be sure but I imagine it is what Reno would look like if it had a beach and a lot of German tourists. The hotel was lovely though, it was a little more removed. We were also there to visit Gustavo's parents. The night we went out to dinner with them his mother held my hand the whole night and tried to convince me that I needed to go dancing with her, she was sure I would really like to go to a country music club as well. I politely declined. Maybe this is just me but I feel like I get touched more in Spain. In the United States people just say your name to get your attention here I get guided everywhere by my wrist. Maybe they are just worried I will wonder off or something.

Ale-ale-jandro

Alex is a typical Spanish child in that he is immaculately dressed and is very photogenic. Additionally, I am pretty sure he has a severe case of only child syndrome and is a world class sulker. He has been very shy with me thus far but every once and a while he requests that everyone at the table speaks English because Kate does not understand Spanish. I am very touched by his concern for my understanding of dinner conversation and he is right, I typically have no idea what is going on. I can only understand Spanish when it is spoken in slow motion and over enunciated. He really is a sweet boy, so long as he is not singing the sponge bob square pants theme song in high pitched Spanish, which I have lost tolerance for.

Cumpleaños Feliz a Keit

 

For Kate this year I have learned to write with love from the children

For my birthday my family held a dinner at their friend's house. Three couples in their thirties, their children and me. A very unusual birthday, I spent all night speaking broken Spanish with amazingly kind strangers. Everyone had a very good sense of humor, after reading what Ana (at age 5) had written in one of my gifts, the parents all exclaimed "Wow! she must go to a very expensive school".. a running joke amongst the parents every time one of their children does something clever. Also our hostess Maria, was sure to reach into the elevator and press the button for every floor before the doors shut and she waved laughing thanking us for coming. 

Thank you so much to everyone for their birthday wishes. Goodnight.

Real Jardín Botánico

The Royal Botanical Gardens of Madrid was founded in 1755 by King Ferdinand VI. Today the collection includes more than 30,000 plant species. I saw my first pomegranate tree, its Spanish name granado was named for the Granada region in Southern Spain where it commonly grows. In August my family is taking me there to their summer home and hopefully I will get to see another one. The most exciting part about el jardín was the class of five year olds on a field trip. I have a whole collection of sneaky pictures that I gathered by utilizing the 16x zoom feature on my camera. How do you say nuggets in Spanish?!

Jamón

Jamón is the dry cured ham of Spain. It is everywhere. It comes strait off of whole pig legs that hang in store windows or in kitchens. My family keeps their jamón pig leg in the breakfast nook next to the phone. I have been here only 3 days and I am already approaching the limit to my jamón tolerance. Here they make jamón y queso sandwiches, a small baguette cut in half with one piece of ham and one slice of cheese. There is about a 4:1 bread/meat + cheese ratio. And there are no condiments. I would love to find a place that sold a sandwich with more than a quarter inch of meat on it or maybe mayonnaise? Leticia has been very sweet to me and took me grocery shopping so I could buy foods that would  make me feel at home. Successfully finding peanut butter in the supermarket was a small victory for us, it is very uncommon here; Alejandro has never tried it before.Though Spain lacks the appreciation for peanut butter, I do give them credit for coming up with the idea for "jamón" flavored ruffles.

"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second."

 -William James

The Plan

In approximately four weeks I will be moving to Madrid for three months. 91 days exactly, this is one day more than allowed under the Schengen Agreement, where you can travel throughout the borderless region by only showing your passport once upon entry. More than 90 days requires a Visa, well.. being the firm rebel that I am, I have decided not to apply for one. It was suggested that being imprisoned, finned or deported would make a great story. That individual will be buying me a very expensive dinner if I spend any number of nights in jail on a bread and water diet. I will be a nanny or au pair for a Spanish family from Madrid. Hence I am the Spanish version of Mary Poppins... María Poppinita. I will teach their son Alejandro English, and in exchange they give me a home. Alejandro is 5 and a half, he likes to dress up (superheros mostly). My main goals of this trip are to become fluent in Spanish (or at least close), and to make friends.


The little peanut in blue will be my new best friend.

Books to be packed:

1. 501 Spanish Verbs

2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (one version in English and one in Spanish, the goal is to read them side by side and finish before leaving Spain)

3. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg (for when I miss America and am tired of reading a social commentary in Spanish)

4. A journal (for all the thoughts I should not put on the internet)

Additionally, I will be bringing a glass water bottle. Not only so that I do not ingest PVC and look super trendy but also so that I can put flowers in my room. All about multi-use over here.

Wanted a nanny for two adorable children

If you want this choice position
Have a cheery disposition
Rosy cheeks, no warts!
Play games, all sorts

You must be kind, you must be witty
Very sweet and fairly pretty
Take us on outings, give us treats
Sing songs, bring sweets

Never be cross or cruel
Never give us castor oil or gruel
Love us as a son and daughter
And never smell of barley water

If you won't scold and dominate us
We will never give you cause to hate us
We won't hide your spectacles
So you can't see
Put toads in your bed
Or pepper in your tea
Hurry, Nanny!
Many thanks
Sincerely,

Jane and Michael Banks