Keeping up my French

The problem with the BA Modern Languages degree is trying to keep all three languages at a good standard. The University of Southampton only allows students to spend their year abroad in one country to better understand the culture, improve the language and to complete the YARP (Year Abroad Research Project).

I chose to spend my year abroad in China rather than a French or Spanish-speaking country as I saw it as a great opportunity. My level of French and Spanish was already quite high but as I'd started Chinese ab initio (from scratch) in first year, I wanted to improve it as much as possible. 

In order to graduate from the BA Modern Languages degree you need to have completed Stage 6 in at least two of the three languages. For those unfamiliar with Southampton's language stage system, there are 7 stages. and each stage normally takes one year to complete. Stage 1 is where I started with Chinese. This is when you have little to no previous knowledge of the language but, on completion, is similar to GCSE standard. Stage 2 is roughly equivalent to AS and Stage 3 is roughly equivalent to A2. I therefore began French and Spanish at Stage 4 having completed A-Levels in each. I was fortunate enough to take part in a 6-week summer programme at Nanjing University in the summer after my first year which counted as my Stage 2 as it was an intensive course combined with the immersion of being in China. This meant that in second year at the University of Southampton, I completed Stage 3 - the required standard set by the university for spending your year abroad in China. It was agreed that it was possible for the year abroad in China to count as two stages - Stages 4 and 5 - on the condition that those wishing to do this write 2000 Chinese characters rather than 1000 for their YARP. I did this so am now hoping to complete Stage 6 in all three of my languages in my final year at university. 

However, choosing to spend my year abroad in China meant somewhat neglecting my other two languages. It was not possible to continue studying French and Spanish at Xiamen University as Spanish was not taught and French was taught on the main campus - a 45 minute to hour and a half bus journey away. This would mean that I had to use my time either side of the year abroad wisely to ensure that I maintained a good standard in both my French and Spanish. 

I spent two months in Madrid last summer working as an au pair and found that my Spanish did improve a lot and I am still quite confident with it. I occasionally spoke Spanish with some of the Spanish-speaking students in Xiamen as well. Although I learnt a lot from the experience, I was not keen to repeat it as things did not go very well with the au pair family. I decided that I would need to find a more formal job in France the following summer.

I started job searching after the month-long holiday for Chinese New Year, week in Nepal for my cousin's wedding and week of my family visiting me in Xiamen. After all of that, this ended up being February which I thought was still quite early for finding a summer position. I was interested in finding jobs that allowed me to speak French but applied for English-speaking jobs as well just to have the opportunity to be in France. I applied to various jobs such as receptionist, hotel assistant, childcare, camp site work, TEFL teacher etc. but struggled to find anything. The issue with a lot of the jobs in the hotel and tourism industry, were that they either wanted people to work the entire summer season - from beginning of May until the end of September - or they wanted to interview in the UK. I obviously could not conform to either of these requirements as I was in China until 24th June. 

Eventually I received two job offers. The first was working as a hotel assistant for a UK-based company in the Alps. They had not yet filled all of their summer vacancies so wanted me to start straight away (after a week and a half in the UK) and stay until mid-September. I found out that all the staff and customers were British so I would therefore not be speaking French whilst working, that I would be working 6 days a week for a low wage doing menial jobs such as cleaning, and that I would not be allowed an extra day off to go to my cousin's wedding in August. After much consideration, I decided not to take the job as it seemed unlikely I would speak French and I would miss out on spending time with my family and friends, visiting Alex in Denmark and attending my cousin's wedding.

Instead, I decided to take the other job I had been offered. This is a three-week TEFL placement for newly qualified TEFL teachers in Châtellerault, Western France. I completed my TEFL qualification with TEFL England in February this year consisting of 20 hours in a classroom and 100 hours online and found this job advertisement on their site. This seemed the perfect opportunity to get some teaching experience and use my new qualification. I will be working as one of three teachers at a children's holiday camp. There will be classes in the morning and activities in the afternoon. Although I will be required to speak to the children in English, I do get weekends free and will be in a more French environment than the holiday resort. The position is unpaid but accommodation and food is provided and I think it should be a great experience and am really looking forward to it. I leave on 10th August. 

On top of this, I have also enrolled myself onto an Advanced Revision course at the Alliance Française de Manchester. It is a four-week course with two 2.5 hour lessons a week (20 hours total) costing £130 or £120 for students. The course focuses on conversation but there is also some useful grammar revision. I have been to two classes so far and am enjoying it. The teacher is very good and gives us little bits of homework to do. I also get free one-year membership to borrow various French books, DVDs and magazines from their extensive collection so am hoping to make use of that soon! They also run a course specifically aimed at final year university students in September so I may do that as well if I still feel that my French is a bit rusty. 

I may not have chosen the easiest option for my year abroad but I feel like it was the right one. It is nice having something productive to do during my summer holidays and spending a year abroad in China as part of my degree was not an opportunity I wanted to turn down. 

Madrid's street performers and buskers

As any tourist/capital city, Madrid is full of street performers and buskers and it has to be said that it does make wanders around the city more entertaining!

When I first arrived I was baffled when I saw a man hovering above another in Puerta del Sol but soon learned that this is a very popular act at the moment as you see them everywhere. I really want to know how they do it though! The trick must be to see them setting up...

Whenever you go to Puerta del Sol you are almost guaranteed to see people dressed up as Disney characters, Smurfs or Simpsons. I haven't got as many photos of them as usually as soon as they see you take a photo, they pester you for money and they're actually quite scary! Someone told me that they saw a fight between a couple of them once which must have been quite amusing.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse meeting

Didn't know Bart Simpson was friends with the Smurfs!

There are also some more traditional street performers dotted around as well, covered in paint or pretending not to have a head. I wonder how much money they actually earn as it's the kind of act everyone's already seen before.

Chilling in the Sabatini gardens

I wonder how he sees where he's going!

I do quite like the tree lady

In Retiro park one day I also saw a guy doing a balancing and juggling act which was pretty impressive.

This guy has probably one of the craziest acts I've seen though. Been fortunate enough to witness him performing twice on pedestrian crossings around Alonso Martinez. 

I'm not sure which I prefer out of the street performers and buskers as there are some good musicians out there!

I've seen some good classical musicians, a string quartet in Retiro and a violinist outside the cathedral/Palacio Real.

He picked a nice busking spot!

String quartet playing on the last day of the book fair in Retiro park

Accordions seem to be very popular here too, there's one accordionist who always plays the music from Amelie in Retiro park which I have always loved. Does make you feel like you should be in Paris though!

Taking advantage of the long queue of tourists waiting to get into the palace for free

I've also seen some less usual instruments being played around Madrid...

Playing the glasses

No idea what this instrument is

My favourites are probably this group of three guys though who are always in the same spot on Calle Fuencarral. The two guys on the right are twins and were my friend Maria Jesús' neighbours back in Leon! They always make me smile. 

Madrid does have a beach!

I've been here for over 7 weeks now and feel like I'm starting to know the city quite well, gradually turning into a madrileña, but the city never ceases to amaze. A common thing for people to say is "Madrid's got everything but it needs a beach" so on Sunday I met up with a friend who took me to one. I had no idea where he was taking me but at the door there was this sign...

... to which I didn't think much - "Oh, it must be a beach-themed bar". It did help prepare me for when we walked in and the whole floor was covered in sand though! The bar's called Areia and is near Alonso Martinez metro station if anyone fancies going along. They do do really good cocktails and it's quite surreal to be walking in sand inside a bar miles and miles away from the sea. 

Loads of comfy cushions lower down to the floor too!

We also went to San Antón market round the corner where there's a rooftop terrace with a bar. This is also a very nice place made even more entertaining by the drunken Irish girls we ended up talking to!

Roof terrace bar

Not really sure what the coloured pigs were for!

It was nice to go along to these places and relax after a busy Saturday. I have recently made friends with the other au pairs in the complex as well as a babysitter and an au pair in another area of Madrid so we all met up for a wander around the city on Saturday. It was so nice to not be doing solo sightseeing for once and I felt so knowledgeable taking them to places they'd never been before like inside the cathedral and the Campo del Moro gardens. Because of being with people, there were probably more photos taken of me on Saturday than the rest of my time in Madrid! In the evening we went to intercambio, as I'd been raving about it so much, before heading onto an "Irish" pub/club for the rest of the night and dancing to reggaeton (yes, definitely Irish). 

My friend Maryn and I in front of the cathedral

Maryn and I in front of the Madrid bear (taken with Maryn's phone)

Me, Dyanna and Lavinia in front of the Royal Palace in El Campo del Moro (taken with Dyanna's camera)

Maria Jesus, me, Dyanna, Sarah and Lavinia in Star Studio 54 (taken with Dyanna's camera)

Semana seis

I haven't posted in a while as I've either been busy playing with the girls or going out exploring Madrid. So, here's a little bit about what I've been up to. On Monday, completely oblivious to the fact I'd got an email telling me that both my place and scholarship had been confirmed for China (see last post), I had a wander around Parque Juan Carlos I while the family went out for a friend's birthday party. It's a modern park in the northeast of the city, on the way to the airport, full of modern sculptures, exercise parks, playgrounds, playing fields and trees with the river running through the middle. Every time I go to a park here I'm reminded that the Spanish like to keep themselves fit by all the joggers, walkers, skateboarders, rollerbladers and people exercising in the specially designed areas. I don't go to parks that often in the UK but I'm pretty sure it's not the same, we don't have the exercise areas for a start!

A pyramid covered in solar panels which power the park's vehicles which are kept inside. Reminded me of the Stockport pyramid a bit!

View from the top of the park. A golf course with buildings in the distance.

On Tuesday I finally checked my emails and found out about China. I celebrated by going out to meet one of my Spanish friends, María Jesús, for a walk/tour round the centre followed by a few drinks and tapas.

Wednesday and Thursday were both intercambio nights as usual but on Thursday afternoon the girls went to their friends' houses so I had a free afternoon in which I went to the Jardín Botánico before meeting up with María Jesús again and going together to intercambio. I quite liked the Jardín Botánico although it may have been a better idea to go there later on because of the heat. You have to pay to go in (3 euros) but if you present your student card, as I did, it's on 1.50. There's a huge selection of plants there including bonsais, cacti and sunflowers so it was nice to have a little wander around. There were also a couple of photography exhibitions on as part of PhotoEspaña, a photography festival in Madrid this summer, so I had a little look round those as well.

Archways

Some of the many bonsais in front of a pool

Never seen so many cacti!

View of the building where the photo exhibitions were held

On Friday and Saturday I met up with a friend from intercambio before doing some more sightseeing on Sunday. I went to the Rastro flea market which takes place on Sundays 9am - 3pm. Having had a Sunday morning lie-in, I didn't get there until 2pm but thankfully it wasn't too crowded. I hadn't been expecting much, as the family don't seem to like it very much, but I was pleasantly surprised by the size and variety of products. I didn't buy anything but it was definitely worth a look. There were a group of African drummers, dancers and singers parading their way up the street whilst the market was taking place so they were interesting to watch.

El Rastro. Market selling souvenirs, furniture, clothes,...

The African drummers, dancers and singers

I had a walk down the Puerta de Toledo as it wasn't far from the market

Later on I went to the Plaza Mayor. Never seen it so busy! There was some kind of concert going on as well as a hunger strike.

Finally, yesterday I attempted to go on a bike ride with one of the family's folding bikes. Before this I thought that my own bike was bad. It's a mountain bike from Toys 'r' us that I've had since I was 10 years old. I took it to Portswood Cycles to get my brakes fixed and the guys in there laughed at how bad it was! I don't use it very much, only to get me round Southampton, so it doesn't really matter. However, I soon realised that my bike wasn't that bad afterall. I managed to go about 15 mins down the cycle track (where I'd taken India the dog a few weeks ago) before deciding to go back, half walking, as the bike was just too difficult to ride. 

One of the family's folding bikes

I've now only got three weeks left here. Where has the time gone?!

School's out for Summer!

The girls have now been on school holidays for a week and we've got used to our new routine. They celebrated their last day at school last Tuesday by having a water party - went to school dressed in their swimming costumes and had what sounds like a two-hour water fight! After school we sang the Alice Cooper classic "School's out for Summer" as I always used to sing that song when I had school holidays. Later on that evening the equivalent of the PTA put on a bit of a party with bouncy castles, soft drinks, crisps and music which was a bit of fun for them and a way of saying goodbye to friends they won't see much over the summer.

Now I'm with the girls all morning until 3-4pm when Mónica madre comes back from work. Mónica and Jose have composed, typed a printed a set of instructions for me to follow to make sure I do everything exactly how they want. I now have to wake the girls up at 10am and do the usual morning routine - breakfast, make sure they get dressed, brush teeth, brush hair, make beds etc. After this I then do a couple of pages from Mónica's Trinity English book with her, spend half an hour on her school's blog which has loads of games, videos etc. for learning English or go on starfall.com - a website with games for children to help them learn to read English. With Carlota we translate a story a day from English to Spanish, made easier by the fact that they've got a couple of bilingual story books with exercises at the back to check the comprehension of new words and expressions in the story. At about 12 we go down to the pool where I sometimes give them swimming lessons (in Spanish as it's a more dangerous environment with the chance of drowning) before drying off in the sunshine playing various games in English. We go back upstairs at 2:15pm for lunch and watch TV at 3pm, it's banned any time before that. I think the girls have enjoyed it so far and I have too, I only wish I'd made more use of my free mornings whilst they were at school! 

Tomorrow we're off to Santander for a long weekend by the beach which everyone's quite excited about. Mónica and Jose have booked Thursday and Friday off work so that we can go and stay in Mónica's brother's house up there for a few days. The plan is to leave at about 4pm tomorrow when the parents are back from work as it's a 4-hour drive up to the north coast from here. Yesterday I was chatting to Mónica madre who asked me if I actually wanted to go with them as before they'd just assumed I did. Apparently they'd thought that I might fancy staying in Madrid to go to intercambios, go out at night, be fully independent and use the WiFi (there isn't any internet at the house in Santander), but of course I said that I wanted to go with them having never been to that part of Spain before. This may mean that there won't be another blog post for a while unless I go to an internet cafe or something! I'll probably post about my time in Santander when we get back though.

Hasta luego!

Egypt and China in Madrid?!

I haven't posted in a while but there hasn't really been much new to talk about. The girls are now on holiday so we're getting used to our new routine and I've continued going to intercambios in the evenings.

On Saturday I went on another solo sightseeing trip to El Templo de Debod, an ancient Egyptian temple that had been given to Madrid as a present in 1968 as a thank you for helping save temples in Egypt. I must admit that before I came to Madrid I'd never heard of any of the sights. It's not like Paris where everyone's heard of The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, The Louvre,... etc. but I certainly didn't expect one of Madrid's sights to be an Egyptian temple! It's made up of arches leading up to the main temple and is surrounded by artificial pools and a fountain as well as sand and more tropical trees.

When I was little I was fascinated by the ancient Egyptians. I can remember going to see a visiting collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts from the British Museum (I was living in Hong Kong) with my mum, my friend and her mum and going round really slowly looking at everything and reading the descriptions. I couldn't understand why my friend and her mother had gone round so quickly when I'd found it so interesting! I think I was probably about 6 at the time but it's a memory that's stuck with me and I still have the book with photos from the exhibition which is written in both English and Chinese. I had a couple of other books too and loved studying the ancient Egyptians at school, in fact I loved history until secondary school where I was put off it by my teacher! Anyway, it was a chance for me to revive my interest for this ancient civilisation.

The entry to the temple was free, a rare occurrence for Madrid where you have to pay for most tourist attractions. I had to wait about 10-15 minutes in a queue as they only allow a certain amount of people in there at once, due to its size and age, but it was worth it. There were two rules for inside the temple, no flash photography and don't touch the walls (fair enough seeing as the stone's from at least 200 BC), so unfortunately my photos from inside aren't that great!

Once inside, the temple was split into several small chambers with a corridor connecting them. The walls were engraved with pictures and hieroglyphics of scenes with Egyptian gods. In order to protect the stone, the temple's fairly dark inside but you could press buttons next to each description (in Spanish and English) of an engraving to turn a light on to see it for a while. There was a film about the temple showing in one room and another room taken up with the old stone gate to the temple while two other rooms were empty with descriptions of what would have happened in them and another, in the centre of the temple, was supposed to be the most important room where only priests were allowed to enter.

They've turned the upstairs area into a museum about the temple complete with a model of how it would have looked (apparently they reassembled it in the wrong order), information about the temple's history and some ancient engraved stones in glass cabinets. I was lucky to be able to go up there as when I'd been before with the Mónicas and Carlota it was closed "for the summer".

El Templo de Debod

Ancient Egyptian temple in Madrid's Parque del Oueste

Engravings inside the temple

Inside the most important room of the temple

More engravings

The old stone gateway

Not sure the fountain was part of the original design!

That night I went to J & J's again for my first ever Saturday intercambio (not that much different to Wednesday or Thursday but maybe less people). Afterwards we went to the "Gin and Tonic Place", I don't actually know its real name! It specialises in gin an tonic and has a huge number of different gins and spices, I didn't know gin and tonic could be so varied. They're quite expensive, between 6 and 12 euros, but they're strong and actually taste nice (I don't usually drink G&T) so worth the money.

The next day I went with a friend to go to a "real" Chinese restaurant. At first I was a bit sceptical as the restaurant is in the underground car park of Plaza de Espana, not really when you'd expect to find it! There are lots of Chinese people in Madrid running shops and restaurants. In Montecarmelo there are probably about 3 chinos (Chinese shops) and in the centre there are plenty more. I enjoy being nerdy trying to read the characters on the shop names and being able to correct myself by reading the Spanish translation! He said that this particular restaurant was supposed to be really good, authentic Chinese food but I'd never really seen anywhere like that outside of China so I didn't really believe him. However, I was mistaken. The name of the 饭馆 fàn guǎn (restaurant) was written in Chinese characters and the menu was in Chinese, Spanish and English. I was happy to see 包子 bāozi (Chinese steamed dumplings containing meat and vegetables, a dish that had become a favourite in Nanjing last summer) at the top of the list so ordered, all in Chinese, 4 of these along with 炒饭 chǎofàn  (fried rice) and 鸡肉蔬菜 jīrǒushūcài (chicken and vegetables) and water, 水 shuǐ to drink. In the corner of the little restaurant there was even a TV showing Chinese music videos with Chinese character subtitles and the staff were chatting away to each other in Mandarin, it really was like stepping into China! I sat there feeling smug when I could understand things, not a nerd at all... If anyone's interested, here's a link to some good reviews about the place. It's in Spanish though, I couldn't find anything about it in English! There are better photos on there as well.
http://www.minube.com/rincon/yulong-el-restaurante-chino-de-plaza-de-espana-a705451

Not the best of photographs but this is the restaurant I've been raving about for the last paragraph. It's nothing fancy but that's why I liked it, so Chinese!

This all reminded me that there still isn't anything confirmed for Xiamen in September! I've just sent an email asking what's happening with it all so fingers crossed... Maybe I'll just stay in Madrid and talk to the Yulong restaurant staff instead?

Dogsitting

So, I now seem to be looking after a dog as well as two little girls, not something I expected to be doing! She belongs to the girls' uncle's family (mum's brother) but she's going to be with us until Friday. Her name's India and she's a brown and white Spaniel. She arrived last night but as I was out with friends I didn't see her until this morning. I soon found out that she's scared of pretty much everything, she stared at me and ran away when she first saw me! Carlota explained that her previous owner was a hunter who mistreated her which is why she's now scared of all people she doesn't know and loud noises. 

As this was my last free morning while the girls are at school, my plan had been to go into the city centre and make the most of it. However, India had other ideas! She refused to go anywhere near the kitchen where she has to stay when alone in the flat and the girls begged me to bring her with us on the school run so, in the end, that's what happened. The suburb where we live, Montecarmelo, is quite a long way out so by the time I get into the city centre I don't have much time there as it is and India seemed to be full of energy, so I decided to change my plans for the morning and go for a walk with her instead. 

The only place you can really go with a dog here is the bike track so that's where we went. India seemed to enjoy exploring somewhere new and we got lots of comments from passers-by. We stopped to talk to a couple of gentlemen who were trying to be friendly to her, but of course she was scared of them too! We walked for about an hour an a half before returning home where she drank a full bowl of water. The walk seems to have worked as she's warmed to me now and allowed me to stroke her! She also let me shut her in the kitchen for a bit so that I could go to the post office to send some cards.

It seems that Mónica madre is more worried about the dog than her two girls. She left me a note with a load of instructions and rang me to confirm this morning. She's also been texting me to check up on us! This is the first time the family have looked after the dog for more than a day so she's quite nervous about it as they've never owned a dog themselves.

The only worrying thing right now is that I have either developed a cold or am allergic to her... 

India

A well-behaved dog!

The bike trail - it would be quite nice without the motorway and pylons spoiling the view!

Not entirely sure how far it goes as we stopped when we hit a motorway