American For Hire

As a native English speaker in Spain, I'll never be more employable in my life. I now have secondary tutoring jobs every day after au pairing, Monday through Friday. Although I'm not wild about working an hour later every day, I truly enjoy the kids, the work and the extra income.

Aside from my Tuesday and Thursday reading buddies, I have agreed to do English classes with my friend's five-year-old son, who is having articulation problems in both English and Spanish, on Fridays. It's not actually therapy since I'm not licensed yet, but I can use my educational background to come up with games and activities that will help reinforce good habits. I'm excited for the challenge (his error patterns are pretty unusual, which I find professionally fascinating) and I plan to treat him with all the care and creativity I will use for my future clients. I actually got caught up daydreaming on my walk home about how we could pretend to be motorcycles to practice different sounds (you know - b's to rev the engines, v's for vrooming along, r's for braking, etc.) and didn't realize I was actually making noises to myself until a lady gave me a really weird look. Oops.

And I just started Monday/Wednesday classes this week with an 8-year-old girl whose parents want her to gain confidence speaking English. When I first got to their house on Monday, she was so nervous she hid behind her bed and wouldn't speak to me in either language for a while. But one of the most useful lessons I've learned, through both speech therapy and my job in a group home, is the importance of getting on to someone's level. So when she hid behind the bed, I simply walked in and sat straight down on the rug and ignored her dad's odd look. I mean, who wants to be towered over, especially when you're already nervous? By the end of that first hour we had bonded over her pet hamster and I got her talking to me in Spanish. I went back for our second class this evening with a storybook and a game. She still won't speak to me in English unless it's explicitly for the activity (ie reading aloud), but as we sat coloring together at the end of our second hour she told me, "I'm sad you're leaving!" "But I'll be back on Monday and we'll play more games!" "That's four days away! ...You could come back Friday, if you want."
The moment you win a kid over has to be just about the most gratifying moment in the world.
Now to get her to say that in the right language...

Ongi Euskadira

That means "Welcome to Basque Country" in Euskera, if we're inclined to trust Google Translate. I translated it from both English and Spanish just to be sure, but I've maintained a healthy dose of skepticism ever since I used it to proofread a French skit about a bakery and somehow the word 'lightning' showed up more than once.

Finlandesa, Alemana and I took a weekend jaunt to Bilbao, a major city in the País Vasco (Basque Country) in the province of Biscay. It was a last hurrah for us before Finlandesa returns home. The Basque language, Euskera, predates the arrival of the Romance languages and therefore has no roots in Spanish. It was cool to see all the signs in Euskera and Spanish, albeit more than a little confusing at times.

We knew it was going to be a good weekend when we were greeted at our Air BnB apartment by a bottle of Rioja, a loaf of bread and a package of Iberian ham. Having our own piso in Casco Viejo, the old part of the city, would have been worth the trip even if we hadn't been completely enchanted by Bilbao anyway. Au pair vacations apparently involve getting excited about things like cooking your own dinner and waking up without having stuffed animals lobbed into your room overnight.

We spent the majority of Saturday wandering the city, soaking in our surroundings. We made our way from Casco Viejo down the main road, through the parks and along the river to the Guggenheim museum.
It's hard to explain exactly why we loved Bilbao so much. We didn't do very much, per se; it was more of the feeling it gave us. For one thing we had unbelievably perfect weather: 60 degrees, the smell of rain in the air and the parks were full of blooming flowers and singing birds (aka my ideal version of January). The architecture was gorgeous. I'm not much of a city person, but with few exceptions Spanish cities don't have the bustle and stress of most American cities. The streets and parks were full of people, but it didn't feel crowded. There's a charm to them I hadn't experienced before.
We had a fantastic three-course lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Guggenheim. My one complaint about Europe is the unfortunate lack of drinking fountains. Other museum-goers may or may not have caught Findlandesa and I drinking from the bathroom sinks...

We attempted to go out on Saturday night, but the part of Casco Viejo our host had recommended was a little on the...uh, viejo side. If nothing else, going out with girls five years younger than me really opened my eyes to how much changes in just a few short years. When my friends were groaning about everyone in the bar being too old - and granted there were a lot of people that looked like they could be our parents - imagine my surprise when I realized they were also talking about the mid- to upper-twentysomethings.
Oh... Awk-ward......

Sunday morning took us on a short stroll past the gorgeous cathedral (but I mean, what town in Spain is complete without a stunning cathedral?) to the Museo Vasco, all about Basque culture and history. We took a cue from the Spanish after our museum visit and seated ourselves on a staircase in the Plaza de Unamuno to enjoy the sun and ambiance. One thing the Spanish do extremely well is leisure. The whole plaza was full of couples walking hand-in-hand, wine glasses clinking in the cafes, and kids chasing soccer balls over the cobblestones. Everyone out and about, but no one hurrying anywhere.

Bilbao is famed for its pintxos (pinchos). I'm not really sure what the supposed difference is between pintxos and tapas, but it seems like - to a non-Spaniard in any case - there isn't one. We headed to the Plaza Nuevo and picked out a variety of appetizer-esque dishes to share. It was my second time eating octopus. The extent to which my diet has changed since coming here still regularly astounds me. You'd think living in Africa would've been the experience that broadened my pallet, but I've lost count of the new foods I've started eating over the last four months.

My time here is starting to slip away faster and faster, and I'm working hard to shorten my Spanish bucket list proportionally. I may still have a lot of places left to go, but I think Bilbao just became my favorite city in Spain - present location excluded. There's no place one's current home, Toto.

¿Un Morreo?

The misadventures of the bilingual continue.

I went out this weekend with two other au pairs, Alemana and a fellow American - who is a guy, which is always really nice to encounter in the au pair world.
I took them to a little bar that specializes in kalimocho - a mixture of red wine and coke with different flavors of spirits added - and drinking board games you can play with it.

The guy landed on a square that instructed him to roll the die against a player of the opposite sex. The loser had to either drink or give the other person a morreo. None of us knew this word, and it wasn't in our translation apps either. I was ready to just ignore it and simply make the loser drink, but Alemana decided we should ask someone. I was surprised, because usually she's too reserved to talk to people in Spanish. Typically it's only me who orders or makes small talk or asks directions, etc.
But she had decided to make an effort to be more extroverted, and apparently there was no time like the present to start.

So she and I grab the nearest stranger by the arm and ask him in Spanish,
"What is a morreo?"
The young guy we'd asked immediately gives her a startled look and stutters, "It's uh...a kiss...uh, with the tongue..."
Alemana immediately goes scarlet and I just about fell out of my chair laughing.

Well, no one ever said learning another language was always a dignified process...

Three Holidays in Three Countries

The last three weeks have found me all over the map, more so than usual.

I met my friend in Denmark on her 26th birthday, marking the sixth country we've been to together in less than six years. I spent ten days with her and her family and friends, and celebrated Christmas there. I can't say Danish food was particularly to my taste- it's a lot of herring prepared every way imaginable, other combinations of things piled on rye bread, and lots of licorice candies- but their traditional rice pudding with cherry sauce is the stuff of dreams. It was a great trip, albeit not anything very blog-worthy. I finally got to see one of my closest friends in her home country and meet the people I've been hearing about for years.

I saw three other friends in Berlin, two of whom are a couple I haven't seen since their wedding in Ghana almost four years ago. I met their adorable year-and-a-half-old daughter, and spent a quiet New Year's Eve eating fondu and watching fireworks out the kitchen window for the first half hour of 2016.
I did a little more tourism in Berlin than in Denmark. The sites ranged from the hotel where Michael Jackson infamously dangled his kid off the balcony, to the former site of the bunker where Hitler committed suicide - now merely a patch of grass by an apartment parking lot without a single marker. I thought it was a beautiful city and would've been well worth dedicating more time to if I could have. I did, however, absolutely freeze my butt off. You'd think 4 years in the U.P. would've prepared me for anything, but I've been living the soft life here in northern Spain where it has barely ever dipped below 50 and lost any yooper grit I ever had.

I came home to Oviedo in time for Reyes Magos, the feast of the three Wisemen on January 6th. It's a big deal here, like Christmas, and I had at least as much fun as my girls. We went to the city parade the night before, which was way more interesting than American ones in my opinion. My favorite part was the flock of geese that marched in the parade. On one hand I felt bad because I think that must be really stressful for them, but it was still a great sight. I was woken up on the 6th by my girls yelling at me to come open presents, and we spent the afternoon at their grandmother's house.

I've written a lot lately about the experience of doing things alone and dealing with being lonely as a result of my decision to travel so much. Well, the last three weeks opened my eyes to the amazing network of people I have exactly because I've traveled so much. In the last four months I've been able to visit people in London, Denmark and Germany - all of whom I met during my year in Ghana. Even an ocean away from my family and the majority of my friends, I had wonderful people to be with during the holidays. Coming back to Spain likewise opened my eyes to how much I've bonded with my little community in Oviedo already. I hadn't fully realized how much I missed my girls until I saw them again. And even outside my host family, there was a handful of people I was excited to come back to, and who were excited to see me.
In getting caught up over the fact that I often explore alone, I'd ignored all the other explorers I've met along the way.

Tomorrow my girls go back to school, and I'm happily digging in to the second half of my time in Spain. 75 days to go and I don't plan to waste them!

La Chica Sola

I'm gaining a reputation as the girl who does things sola.

I think a lot of people admire my willingness to do things by myself. And normally I also feel that my independence is one of the qualities I value most. It comes with its flip side, however. There are plenty of lonely moments, and I struggle with that quite a bit. I ask myself a lot if it's worth it to leave everyone I love to explore this big world by myself. I have been incredibly fortunate to have friends and families (yes, more than one) who have given their unconditional blessings in all my assorted adventures. Without doubt the question I get asked most is how my parents handle my international wanderings.
The answer is simple: They were the first people who taught me that you have to love with your hands open.
When I cried because I'm represented by a stocking in my family's Christmas picture, it was my mom who reminded me, "But this is who I raised you to be." How humbling it is to realize there are people who love you enough to give you permission to leave them. Seems funny, doesn't it? I only get to be the girl who does things alone thanks to my whole community of people.

Here is where Spanish falls short, however. Sola means both alone and lonely. And I, for one, want to be able to see the difference.

Remember how I got lost when I went to the Alhambra, and my group had to pick me up twenty minutes into the tour? Partway through, we took a snack and bathroom break, and regrouped ten minutes later in the busy area near one of the main entrances. Amid all the hectic crowds and my uncertainty over exactly where we needed to meet (thank you, language barrier), I almost missed my group again and found them just barely in time for the head count. The count came up one short, and my tour guide asked who was missing a friend or family member. One lady immediately piped up, "What about that girl who was here alone?" She'll never know that tiny courtesy is one of the most important memories I have of visiting that world famous landmark.
I was the only person in my tour who was there without someone else, but someone still noticed me and cared enough to make sure I wasn't overlooked. How much more willing would we be to move through the world alone sometimes if we could feel assured that strangers would still have our back?

This idea of myself as someone who does things alone stings at least as often as it's a source of personal pride. Sometimes sola tastes like freedom; other times it's just plain solitude. But I do realize this won't last forever, and that plenty of my life adventures will happen in the company of loved ones. So my hope is that I will remember this 6-month lesson in soledad - in both its senses - when I am back to a place where I have my people around me. That I will remember the true luxury it is to know someone else is looking out for you, and perhaps be someone else's stranger who reminds them we're rarely as alone as we think we are.

Au Pair Confessions

I have a confession: I didn't take this job because I wanted to work with kids.

I've been working with kids in various capacities since I was about Middle's age. Throughout the years I've been a babysitter, a tutor, a nanny, a teacher, and a respite caregiver. I genuinely enjoyed every one of those experiences. In fact, there's a good chance I want to make a career out of working with very small children. But after spending all of college working almost exclusively with adults I got out of the habit of crayons and cookies and Polly Pocket, and I didn't really feel the need to go back.

I decided to be an au pair because it was the best way for me to live abroad. Punto final.
I suspect this might be the dirty secret of a lot of au pairs.

I wanted to live in Europe; I didn't want to spend all my money to do it; I wanted to use my education, but didn't want to be a teacher. That left me with au pairing, even though theoretically the idea of working as a live-in nanny was not my ideal venue.
Now that I've actually lived that role for several months, I can say that indeed it isn't my favorite job. There are plenty of days I'd rather not tutor Little through another science lesson or put in the effort to give Middle an entertaining English class.

But the chance to be part of these three girls' lives for six months has been worth every single minute.

My mom is a nanny for my cousin's three young children. I see her make a serious effort to spend time with them off the clock. She tells me she doesn't want to turn into just 'the babysitter;' it's important that she still gets to be their aunt sometimes.
I've adopted this mindset. I don't ever want me or the girls to feel like they're invading on 'my time' when Oldest asks me to watch a movie with her on a Friday night, or Middle wants to kick my butt at Rummikub on a Saturday afternoon, or Little gets it into her head to undertake making cake pops.

For both my mom and I, our jobs are working with kids, but that doesn't means the kids should be the job.

I have the opportunity to meet each of my girls for who they are and where they are in their lives. The more I learn about them as people, the more I have developed a sense of pride in what I do and who I get to be for them.

The other day, it was Middle's turn to walk Toro, and she only took him for a quick turn around the block in her hurry to go to the pool. Oldest, a dedicated student who was studying every spare minute for all her end of the semester exams, decided to take him for a longer walk because she thought it was so unfair that he'd been cheated out of his usual time. I don't know many adults who have that level of compassion in a situation they just as easily could have ignored, much less an over-stressed high school student.

Middle is going through a rough patch trying to make the jump from kid to teenager. She knows where she wants to be, but hasn't quite figured out how to get there yet, and all too often gets in her own way. Of the three, I've had the hardest time connecting with her thanks to the awkwardness of this transition period, but I fiercely believe in the person she's trying to become. Her sharp wit, sarcastic sense of humor and insane stubbornness are going to be her greatest assets as much as they're her biggest obstacles right now. There's something very important about having other adults you can trust when you go through the inevitable period of butting heads with your parents, and I take that role very seriously.

Little is growing up a little more every day as we approach her eighth birthday. In the last two and a half months, we've built our jokes and routines, and discovered a shared sense of humor that spans the age gap. Every time I think I don't have a drop of patience left, she manages to do something so incredibly sweet or funny I can't help but laugh. We've been working on the times tables all semester, and I taught her the memory trick "8 and 8 fell on the floor, when they came back up they were 64." Unprompted by me, that problem came up at the dinner table one day and she muttered the rhyme to herself before giving the answer. Then she turned to me and said, "You know, Kat, I still don't think I'd remember that one without that." The intense pride I feel in what I do lives in those smallest of moments.

I became an au pair so I could live in Spain, but the real confession is that's ended up being the least important part of these 177 days.

Cuentos de Cuentas y Cuestas

(Stories of Bills and Hills)

I had this problem where I could NEVER remember the word for 'bill' in Spanish. Who knows why, it's just one of those things like how I can always pull out the word for 'hummingbird' at the drop of a hat, but regularly forget how to say 'knee.'
But after my friend recently asked for the 'hill' instead of the 'bill' at lunch during last weekend's adventure to Andalucía, we decided to use that incident as the catalyst for remembering the right word from then on. In her defense it's a very easy mistake to make, considering "¿Cuánto cuesta?" is "How much does it cost?" but "una cuesta" is a hill or incline while "una cuenta" is the tab/bill. One top of that, "un cuento" is a story (And in a great moment of serendipity, I learned today that a cuentacuentos is a storyteller. This just keeps getting better!) Lucky for us, Granada gave us a lot of opportunities to practice all the above.

Monday and Tuesday were national holidays, so two fellow au pairs and I set off Friday morning to spend the long weekend in Granada. I'll call them Alemana and Finlandesa, since they're from Germany and Finland respectively. Three buses, a flight and about nine hours after leaving my front door, I was at my Air BnB without incident.

Founded in the 11th century, Granada is a city of about a quarter million people in Andalucía, a region in southern Spain. Its rich history is based in the combination of Moorish, Jewish, Romani and Castilian cultures. From flamenco and tapas to la Alhambra and winding cobbled streets, Granada is probably most representative of how the majority of Americans picture Spain.

We spent Saturday walking all over the old parts of city. At least from what I could tell, la Catedral de Granada and la Plaza Nueva more or less mark the boundary between the old sections with primarily Muslim roots and the progressively newer sections built anytime after the Catholics gained control of the city in 1492. La Albaicín (Albayzín) is the sprawling Moorish neighborhood with iconic white houses and narrow roads that go two directions - straight up and straight down - surrounding the Alhambra's hill. It's packed with small cafes offering mint tea from squat silver teapots and plenty of shisha.

We wound our way up the hills to the Mirador de San Miguel Alto, a church above the city with a low wall that offers a breathtaking view of the entire city. La Alhambra juts out on a ridge to the left from where you can sit directly overlooking the Albaicín and finally discern the real shape of the cathedral, which is set so densely among other buildings you can't really appreciate its grandeur from up close. The historical areas eventually give way to progressively taller modern buildings that in turn fade into farmland, which disappears into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in the distance.

Mirador de San Miguel Alto (photo courtesy of Finlandesa's camera)

Very little short of our ticket to a private flamenco show could have enticed us off that wall. Granada is full to overflowing with bars offering highly commercialized espectáculos de flamenco. Thanks to an invitation through my Air BnB hosts, we got to experience this art form up close and personal in a private home. A co-op hosts flamenco and tapas nights periodically, and we were there for the right weekend. Flamenco includes four essential components: singing, guitar, dancing and rhythmic snapping/clapping. While strongly associated with the Romani, it's a true Andalusian art. Dramatic, loud and energetic, I found it mesmerizing with its waves of fiery motion and intermittent calm punctuated by the tiniest of heel taps and soft cries of olé. Most incredible was watching the connection between the three performers. The singer kept her eyes pinned on the guitarist's fingers, whose gaze was intensely focused on the dancer's heels, and together they could transition from the storm to the calm seamlessly.

We started Sunday with the quintessential churros con chocolate. Pretty much all I've ever wanted is for someone to offer me a teacup full of melted chocolate for breakfast, so this was a hit with me. Unfortunately, Oldest generously shared her cold with me and I spent a good chunk of Sunday sleeping while my companions explored the free areas of la Alhambra.



We had an afternoon appointment at Aljibe, one of the many traditional Arab baths. The baths consisted of 7 shallow warm pools of various temperatures, with a cold pool illuminated in the center. The room was humid and cave-like, lit only with candles and heavily shaded lamps. Clients are expected to be silent, so the only sounds are running water and the soft Arabic music playing in the background. Water, sweetened mint tea and lemon candies were constantly available. I chose to include a 15 minute massage with my session. Alemana thought I'd legitimately passed out at one point, if that demonstrates my level of relaxation.
After that hour and a half, we were only motivated enough to camp out at a tapas bar with cards and a pitcher of sangria. Another of Granada's claims to fame is as one of the last cities that offers free tapas, the hors d'oeuvres-y fare offered every time you order a drink. Its possible to visit the city without ever actually paying for a dinner.

Alemana and Finlandesa headed back to Málaga Monday morning, where they had an earlier flight than I on Tuesday. I stayed for my guided tour of la Alhambra - another misadventure in the life of the directionally challenged. First let me say in my defense that everyone's very kind directions revolved around climbing or descending a hill and I just didn't find that very helpful in a city that is nothing BUT hills. So my tour- which was supposed to start at 10:00 at a cafe at the bottom of the hill- actually started with me calling the tour company at 9:55 in a total panic because I had inexplicably ended up already inside the Alhambra. I was told in no uncertain terms not to budge from the Puerta del Vino and my tour passed by about 25 minutes later and rescued me.


We spent the next three hours exploring the sprawling palace, most of it built 800 years ago by the sultans who were trying to impress the Castilians and fellow Moors alike into forgetting to ask how big their army actually was. We saw the Generalife as well, a second palace slightly farther up the ridge, surrounded by elaborate orchards and gardens. It was the sultans' summer home, since vacationing a nice ten minute walk away was the most practical option when your own people were constantly on the verge of rebellion and the Castilian kings were an ever present threat.

By the time I walked back through my front door Tuesday evening, I was thoroughly glad to be back in Asturias. As beautiful and interesting as Granada was, Oviedo is the place to live in Spain as a foreigner, in one temporary expat's opinion. I'm ready to enjoy my time at home after my mini vacation, and in less than a week now I will be back on a plane to spend the holidays in Germany/Denmark!

"Dale limosna, mujer.

Que no hay en la vida nada

Como la pena de ser 

ciego en Granada."

- F.A. de Icaza