First Week of TEFL Course

I was so happy I had finally gotten a roommate and settling into the apartment was coming along very nicely.  Maria was a big help with how to get around, where the grocery stores were and had good suggestions for different restaurants.  I was starting to get excited for the course to start to have some kind of schedule to my very chaotic life.  I have class everyday and the typical day is from 11am to 2:30pm, if I am teaching I will have to come earlier or stay later.  This was not going to be a problem for me; I mean my workdays were much longer in Chicago!

(the apartment building)

(my little room!)

So Monday, August 6^th rolled around and it was the first day of class, I did not know what to expect.  There are a total of 5 of us in the class and 2 more students would be joining us in 2 weeks.  I have never been in such a small class before!  No slacking off I guess!  My teachers are Stephen and Kerry; Stephen is British and makes fun of my accent, even though I can’t understand him a lot of the times and Kerry is from New York.  The first day of class went well, started out going for coffee (would be awesome if everyday started like this!) and then we reviewed English grammar and got to know each other.

The other people in my class besides Nicolle, include Tamara, Kelly and Peter.  Tamara is from Tennessee but has lived all over the world and is currently living in Denmark, she has been teaching for about 10 years.  Kelly is from Detroit and was living in Abu Dhabi and wants to go to Korea to teach after the course.  Peter is 20 years old and from New York, he plans on staying in Barcelona after the course.  Everyone gets along great and it seems like it will be a lot of fun going out all together!

The class itself is going well, it is quick paced but it is a lot of common sense.  There was more homework than I expected to have to do, but I am getting by; Iowa taught me well!!  The first week of class went by very quickly and I taught one class all by myself by Thursday.  I taught a beginners level, we talked about food/drink/sports and what they like and don’t like.  It was a lot of fun and very rewarding when you could tell by their faces that they understood. 

Other than class during the day, nights were a lot of fun also this past week.  A friend I met in London and hung out with for a few nights there was actually going to be traveling through Barcelona Sunday-Tuesday, so we got to hang out and I showed him the city a bit since I have been here for almost 2 weeks by now.  It was a lot of fun walking around the beach, La Rambla, Parc Guell and drinking sangria.

(Street Performers are everywhere!)

Then last night, Friday, my classmates decided to go out for the celebration of getting through our first week of class! Went started out at The Obama Bar, yes as in the President.  There is a life-size statue of him and the bar is all decked out in American/British/African décor, there was a lot going on in the bar and was a bit confused how it all related.  It is very strange all of the bars around Barcelona have people standing outside the bars trying to get people to come in, and they give away free shots if you do get a drink.  So throughout the night we went to a few other bars with the shot deal and it turned into a little barcrawl.  After The Obama Bar we ended up at an Irish Bar, so much for being in Barcelona!  The Irish place had live music and it reminded me a lot of the bars back home because it was very big with multiple levels.  After that bar we decided to go to a terrace restaurant along Rambla and indulge in sangria, there was some great people-watching and decided to then check out the club scene.

(we decide he looked a bit like Bush and just recently painted)

Since Barcelona is so old, there are not many places that have air-conditioning.  Or if they do, it is an air-conditioner mounted on the wall and it is more like a fan.  Well, needless to say the club we went to did not have air-conditioning and it was ridiculously hot in there.  The club was a lot of fun and ladies got in for free with a free shot, can’t beat that!  We stayed there awhile and then decided it was time to go; we got on our bus and since we live so far away I asked the bus driver to let us know exactly what stop we were supposed to get off at.  Well he told us to get off, but it was the wrong stop and we ended up walking about 45 minutes trying to find the apartment.  Eventually we recognized where we were and got back to the apartment as the sun was coming up, dang those Spanish people not knowing directions!