A very Riojan day

On Friday, instead of sleeping until noon, I participated in CRA Moncalvillo's (the schools where I teach on Tuesdays) celebration of Book Day by going to Medrano and Sorzano and telling the story of the 3 Little Pigs in English. Kelly and Natalie also participated.

In Sorzano, there is a mechanical nativity scene that I had never seen, so after storytelling, the children and I walked there.

The mechanical nativity scene (Belen Mecanico). It's housed in a cinder block building (see below) and you have to go to a cafe and get the keys from this old woman. And then you just walk in and this 1940s Spanish music starts playing and all the little figurines move back and forth. To the far left is the actual nativity scene, and the rest are anachronistic shops and schools and houses and beauty parlors. The best is a prisoner climbing out of the jail window on a rope.

Me with the children I teach in Sorzano in front of the Belen Mecanico. There are only 7 at the school.

This is one of the views from Sorzano. The little girl is Yura. She's maybe 5 and from Morocco and extremely intelligent. That's Marian's, one of the boy's, dogs.

The school in Sorzano.

The classroom.

After storytelling, Kelly, Natalie, and I walked to a deserted a convent just outside of Nalda. You can see it in the right of the photo with all of the branches growing through what used to be the roof.

We walked to the currently functioning church/convent nearby afterwards and laid out in the most manicured, plush grass I've seen in Spain and perhaps in my life. We returned to the school at about 2:30 for merendola, a giant snack, with all of the teachers from the CRA, and then Rosa drove us back to Logrono at about 3:45. I had my conversation class, and then got ready to go to a birthday dinner with all of my teachers from Alberite. The dinner was in a bodega owned by several couples, including some of the teachers.

The fire that a few of the teachers built to grill the food on. They burn grape vine branches until they are embers and then...

they put the meat over the fire in these things. They cooked chorizo, really thick bacon, and chuletas, or lamb ribs. One of the teachers, Jose Ignacio, was very concerned that I had never eaten chuletas before and kept asking me who do you hang out with that you have never eaten chuletas before?

There were 24 of us for dinner, and food to feed 40. The bread circles that you see are covered in goat cheese and tomato marmalade. So good. There is a tapa in Logrono of this variety.

To the left, see the chuletas.

After dinner ended at 11:30, we had desserts including dark chocolate-covered orange peels that my English teacher, Susana, made. There was a "chocolate" cake that I think perfectly demonstrates the problem with Spanish desserts. It was basically light brown flan. And then we had sorbette, lemon sorbet with champagne, and we started playing pre-planned games.