First few days

Ok, so, let me just do a recap of what’s going on over here…  just got back to the hostel from quite the interesting afternoon.  I got up early, ate breakfast and caught the bus into the city center, then I then took a train in to Binissalem (about a 25-minute ride), where the school is I’ll be teaching at.  I really have to hand it to Mallorca, they have a great public transit system that’s really easy to navigate.  The signs are very easy to understand and placed intuitively so you can really visualize where you are according to all the maps, and routes posted!… or maybe it’s just really easy because there are only like 3 train lines and it’s a tiny island… I guess it’s probably a bit of all of these things… Anyways, I found my way to Binissalem, and I’m psyched because the main train station is like a 3 minute walk from where my apartment is (I move in on the 2nd). 

However, it was a little bit of a trek from where I’m staying right now.  My hostel is in this weird little carnival town filled entirely with German people, except for all the shopkeepers, who typically speak spanish.  This place (S’Arenal) it’s called, is a 30-minute bus-ride away from the city, which isn’t bad, and basically I’m just staying here because the hostel is cheap, and I have my own room and a balcony! Also, it doesn’t hurt that it has a nice beach that I spent the day on yesterday!  Anyways, it’s strange because this gorgeous strip of beach is lined with spanish restaurants that sell strudel and bratwurst alongside typical spanish fare, and all the menus are in german, and most of the clientele are the German equivalents of those Americans you see at amusement parks or you meet while you’re traveling, and you’re like… “Really?  These are the Americans that give us a bad name”… 

Anyways, I digress… today I went to the school (IES Binissalem) for a departmental meeting with the “foreign language” department there.  I had no clue what to expect!  The school is about a 10-minute walk from the train station, and the village is old-school, we’re talking really old-school.  There is a beautiful church in the central square, and everything is cobbled, the streets, and houses made of bricks of light stone.  It’s a really beautiful place, quite quaint.  You can see olive trees grouped along the perimeter of the town, as well as hear (and smell) bulls and lambs in surrounding pastures.  When I first walked into the school, I went to the front desk and explained in Spanish who I am and, why I was there and who I was meeting.  The ladies at the front desk were so excited, they had these silly grins on their faces like they were so happy to see me and kept asking me about North America, and how I was finding Mallorca to be, etc. etc., etc. They were really sweet. 

I was a little early, so I had to wait to meet up with the department head.  And she is really nice.  Though we have been communicating via e-mail in english, we spoke in spanish the whole time, and then before we headed to the meeting, she turned to me and asked if I speak catalan.  I basically was like, “oh, well I’ve taken one course and I can read it well, but I have a lot to learn,” to which she responded that the departmental meeting is usually in catalan, but she would try to help me out and take notes. hahah oy.  So, they started the meeting and were talking about the german department, in catalan, and when they started talking about the english department, they switched over to spanish for me… oh man, it was hilarious.  I’m going to learn A LOT.  A LOT.  A LOT.  of both catalan and spanish.  I’m super excited.  Also, for the record, I could mostly understand what they were talking about in catalan, which I did NOT expect.  Everyone in the department was really nice.  When we were discussing my schedule, one lady was like “we’re going to fight for you”, and thanks to her and the head of the department, they condensed my schedule into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  Hello, long weekend!!   Also, get this, apparently I’m going to be helping out with music and art classes.   The music teacher is this hilarious guy who speaks really good english, actually.  Well at least, he’s the only one who actively spoke english.  At the meeting, they asked me if I was musical, and I said I can only play one song on the piano (despite having taken it for like 6 years).  They told me I can just play that song all year. hahaha wait till they hear it.  “If I Were A Rich Man” will be haunting them now!    Some pics of Binissalem:

 

Some things weird tidbits I’ve taken note of so far:

- I saw a sidewalk store selling a t-shirt with a cartoon octopus on it singing “ole ole ole ole” and holding a spanish flag in one of his tentacles (re: the octopus that predicted Spain would win the World Cup)… I need to buy one of those shirts.

-All of the houses in Binissalem have green shutters, as do most of the buildings in downtown Palma… reminds me of home!

- People in S’Arenal assume I’m French?  Three separate people have assumed that, at least… strange.

-Also, super-excited I have polarized sunglasses because if not, I feel that I would probably be blind right now.  The sun is crazy here…

Anyways, hope you’re all doing well, I’m going to meet up with some people from my program tonight for the first time, we’re meeting in one of the main plazas to have some tapas, should be good!