skiing in jeans...

This has been one of the most pleasant weekends of my year thus far in Spain. Friday morning I got up headed to the train station went up to the mountains for a day of skiing! I read the weather forecast beforehand, and after seeing the report as sunny with minimal wind and about 43 degrees, I decided that it would be a nice day. Given my preparedness for mountain excursions (I brought a windbreaker with me... snow equipment is stored at home in California)I figured I'd get by with my jeans and some sunglasses.

Of course weather reports are always wrong when you really need them so you can imagine our surprise when we arrived at train station at the mountain to find clouds and snow and 23 degrees. Brrr.

To get to the actual mountain we decided to follow some older folks, a Spaniard and a German, with a snowboard who quickly became our friends (because people are so nice once you get outside of the city!). However, I'm not quite sure how things got so out of control but before we knew it we had abandoned the paved, plowed road and had begun to scale the side of a mountain covered with fresh snow in sneakers because one of them said it was a "short-cut".

With frozen feet yet high spirits we arrived at the lodge and set about the task of renting equipment. Mike actually broke the clasps off of 2 pairs of ski boots before he finally found a pair that he could use (that still had the velcro strap broken, but the guy who kept having to take the boots back assured him that the boots would be just fine). Through our laughter, Mike said (in Spanish) "I guess God just doesn't want me to ski today." It was just a figure of speech until later as we were paying for the equipment the Spaniard asked us if we were Christians and invited us to a Christian rock show... oh man. At the end of the day we shared the train home with them and were absolutely stunned when we heard him start speaking fluent Chinese with another girl on the train... people never cease to amaze.

Anyway, I taught Mike how to make turns on his skis and then switched to a snowboard for the last hours of the afternoon. The hill was small but there was some fun to be had. I was freezing and looked ridiculous, but it felt so great to be back on my snowboard. Oh how I miss living in the mountains.

We got a lovely sunset for the train ride home and then there was birthday karaoke in the evening- all the ingredients of a wonderful day. Not to mention the weather is finally taking a turn for the better here in Madrid; the entire weekend was really nice.

In other news, Saturday night I broke one of my own rules and got on the back of a 'moto' to ride with my roommate to see 'Les Miserables'. Being on the back of a motorcycle in an urban area with crazy drivers everywhere is terrifying (and not to mention FREEZING) so I took the metro home at the end of the show... what a wimp!

Global Classrooms

One of the highlights of this month has been my participation in the bilingual high schools' Model United Nations conference. Basically, all of the Fulbrighters who teach in the secondary schools have been prepping their kids for this event since September. (On a sidenote, I have to say that the elementary teachers kind of get jipped in this deal- prepping kids for standardized tests from Cambridge is not nearly as fun.) The Fulbrighters made up the Dais, or council that presides over the meetings.

It was a two-day event but I was only there for the second day as a judge of the Western European Conference. There were five conferences- Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Latin America. For some reason the Western European conference included countries like the US, Turkey, Israel and New Zealand, I guess they didn't know where else to put them(?) Anyway, each country had 2 delegates that came from the same school and who had worked together to write position papers and research their selected country to debate the topic of Access to Education, with an emphasis on Women's rights.


The kids took it really seriously and it was fantastic to watch. The spoke in English the entire time, they stayed on task (ALL day long, even when I was ready to have a siesta on the Dais table), and they really tried to represent their countries honestly. Their intentions, while at times naive, were quite honorable and they had all kinds of countries working together to make a better educational environment for all. It really was a special day.

At the end of the day we had an awards ceremony at the Assembly of Madrid and the kids were just ecstatic to win anything. They all cheered for their friends and other kids who had been in their conferences. It was a nice break from my daily routine and it made me happy to think that some of my elementary school kids could be participating in just a few years time.

(some of the notes that the delegates passed to each other in the effort to write resolutions during the conference)