I'm going to make a snowman!

This past week I was able to accompany 30 7th graders from my school on an overnight class trip to Granada, chaperoning along with the Jose-Miguel the phys-ed teacher, Noe the English teacher and Abby, the other language and culture assistant (from Seattle). We started off at 8:30 in the morning, waving goodbye to nervous mothers and relieved teachers (class size reduced by 90% for two days! Glorious!). The kids were hilarious on the bus, singing camp-type songs on the bus, and trying to make Abby and I promise to speak only in Spanish for the whole trip (nothing doing kiddos! I'm here to teach you English!).

We didn't visit the Alhambra (which surprised me at first...but after spending less than 48 hours with these kids, I think it was probably a wise decision to save the Alhambra for a high school trip - so active). Instead, we visited Granada's huge "Parque de las Ciencias" (Science Park - think a combination of a small zoo plus the Hands-On Museum or Cosi museum in Ohio...multiply that by 10).


Science Park Playground from Catherine Steiner on Vimeo.

We also got to take a bus trip up to the Sierra Nevada mountains where the kids went sledding and ice skating. I think for a fair amount of them it was their first time seeing real, live snow, so it was fun to watch their reactions. The first video is of the kids seeing the snow-capped mountains from the bus as we got closer to Granada - (the tour guide was telling them a legend about two lovers one a Muslim princess, the other a Christian man who jumped from some nearby cliffs because they would never be accepted in one another's worlds) - you can hear them get excited as soon as the tour guide mentions "nieve" (pronounced "nee-ay-vay"). The second video is them when they first got off the bus in the Sierra Nevada:


Seeing snow from the bus from Catherine Steiner on Vimeo.


Snow Fight! from Catherine Steiner on Vimeo.

I also didn't realize until the trip how much I actually kind of missed the snow (ok, ok - I realize that all you guys in the Michigan/Midwest area have just been hit with tons of snow lately, and unbelievable cold...but think how much winter would be lacking without the snow, but just the cold! That's kind of what it's been like here...but a little warmer). I had a heyday getting my kids to sled down from a higher place on the hill ("It's more fun! I promise!" I told them), and getting them to try skating backwards (there might have been a little showing off involved there too...ahem). It was also funny to me to see signs for "sled rental" and "ski clothing rental" - something which makes sense for most Andalusians since they don't live in a place that snows very often.

a conversation over breakfast in Morocco

Context: The family visited for Christmas. It was great, number one, because I got to be with THEM! Also it was great because it gave me an opportunity to play tour guide and go to places I hadn't had the opportunity to go yet, like Tangiers (Morocco). It's only a 40-minute ferry ride from the tip of the Iberian peninsula in Tarifa (Spain). We took a great tour of Morocco with our tour guide, who called himself "Aziz-Number-One", and had a tour-guide friend called "Ali-the-Frog". Aziz-Number-One made a point of indicating all the doors in the city and in the Kasbah that Henri Matisse had painted during a two-year stint in Tangiers during the early 20th century. The day after our tour, at breakfast in our hotel (whose elevator lacked a closing sliding door so that you could see every floor as you passed it), I had a conversation with my parents after Becky and Nate had left that went something like this (don't worry, I got permission to share this on the blog, as long as I wasn't "too hard" on my mom, who I love a TON. Please keep in mind that she had had very little sleep on the plane 2 days before, and her oldest daughter had given her very little time to recover before pushing the whole family out the door to a restless bus-ride and ferry ride. I tell this story with much love, mom!):

Mom: Well, wow, I had no idea that Henri Matisse had painted all those doors!

Dad: Those are some good views.

Cat: Yeah, I didn't know he had spent all that time in Morocco either.

Mom: I mean, I'm surprised they don't put plaques there or something - you'd think people would want to preserve a door a little more if it had been painted by Henri Matisse.

[Dad and Cat give each other looks with raised eyebrows, and then look at Mom].

Cat: Wait...you don't think he actually painted the doors, do you? When Aziz said he painted them, he meant he painted them on canvas...

Dad: [Cracking up...unable to contain himself...] Ha ha.... [more red-faced laughter]

Mom: Oh...[starts laughing, realizing her misinterpretation of Aziz's words]...ha ha...oh, wow, that explains a lot! Wow...I mean, I was thinking like 'How did Henri Matisse do it? Did he just walk up to people and say 'Can I paint your door?'' - I mean...I thought people must have been really honored to have Henri Matisse paint their doors and so they let him...hee hee....ah ha ha...

Cat: [Also cracking up] Ha ha...oh ha...woooo...

Dad: [Red-faced, doubled over...] Hee hee!

Mom: Ah! Ah ha ha - I mean...oooh, wow. WOW. Ha ha [Johnson giggle/laugh, which can only be truly replicated by the Johnson women...my cousins and aunts/uncles on the Johnson side will understand this]...


So, I leave you with these couple photos of the doors in Tangiers that were painted by Henri Matisse.