Halloweiner! and more.

The weekend of Halloween was pretty eventful here in Sevilla.  Of course we had a normal 12-hour work week at school, but I got to spend Wednesday and Thursday explaining what Halloween was to 3rd-6th graders!!  Halloween is by far in my top 3 favorite holidays... if not my favorite!  Emma's too!

The week was mainly spent on teaching basic Halloween vocabulary words and A LOT of coloring Jack-o-lanterns.  We even made 4 huge banners to hang in the hallway that said "Happy Halloween."  The 5th and 6th graders wrote out the words and drew pictures on it for the 2nd-4th graders to color.  The banners would have been great if they had drawn more than just spiders, pumpkins, weird faces with blood coming out of the eyes, the "Saw" clown guy, and ghosts that were more like Grimace from McDonald's than actual ghosts....  I might have the drawing ability of a 3 year old, but i am way more creative...  I guess I only rant because I love Halloween and I missed it back home and their silly drawings didn't satisfy my need for huge bags of candy and trick-or-treating.

We had been talking about Halloween all week and I was so pumped to dress up on FRIDAY for school!  I went as a hillbilly because of my lack of resources and my belief against buying a "real" costume just for Halloween.  I was hoping the teachers wouldn't think I was just a gay lumberjack with no teeth and cutoff jean shorts...  Of course, I had a mustache and pork-chop sideburns just like I do every time I dress up even when it's not Halloween.

ol' tree trunk legs was the only one out of 200 students and staff dressed up for Halloween on this day.

I made them touch my belly... I'm not sure if they wanted to or not.

One of the 12 English classes I teach.  I convinced them I was Wesley's brother rather than just me dressed up as something weird for Halloween. 

The teachers loved that I dressed up and came to school.  The kids loved it, I think.  They really had no idea what to think.  Spain, or atleast where we live in Sevilla,  associates American Halloween with Dia de los Muertos and some other pagain rituals haha.  All the kids believe it has something to do with everything scary.  When kids dress up, there is no Peter Pan, Snoopy, Superman, or anything like that.  It's all vampires and witches. Also, Trick-or-Treating is a little hard because everyone lives in apartment buildings or pisos.  There aren't very many individual homes unless you go way out past the pueblos.  When I asked teachers if they like Halloween, they said "Halloween no va conmingo" or in other words it doesn't fly here.   It's ok.  I brought the joy of Halloween to them anyways!

FRIDAY NIGHT, we also went to see a scary movie! We saw "Los Ojos de Julia" which was pretty decent and a good movie for Halloween.  Also, a large popcorn and 2 large drinks is about $10 here in Sevilla as opposed to $754,632 in the states.


SATURDAY was spent mainly hanging out and going on walks before we went to "Noche Entre Amigos" (Night among friends).  One night a month, one of the Christian churches in Sevilla has a night for people to come and listen to music.  Jordan, Sarah, and I played 2 songs in English for the ol Spaniards.  We played the folky version of "I Saw the Light"!  The Spaniards never really get to listen to this kind of music so they loved it!  So now the people who meet Emma and I will associate us with country music, Sweet Home Alabama & Forrest Gump (the only 2 things spaniards know about Alabama), and Wesley Snipes (the only person they know with my same name). 

Spaniards don't smile.  

                                
I Saw the Light from Wesley Teague on Vimeo.


SUNDAY we went down to Jordan and Sarah's apt. to celebrate Halloween! They invited several Spaniards, but of course none of them showed up because they probably didn't want to celebrate all the pagan rituals we were going to be doing like eating candy, making Jack-o-lanterns and wearing our cool costumes!
I dressed up as my ol' hillbilly self from Alabama and Emma went as..... a kitty of course!!  Sarah and Jordan were pirates.  We made jack-o-lanterns, ate some pumpkin stew, watched micheal jackson, and listened to scary music.

kitty

A kitty and a kitty.  Which one is my wife??

Our Jack-O-Lantern!