Parque Warner | 25.10

It's nearing Halloween so we (Samra, Esther, Slavena and I) decided to check out one of the main theme parks here in Madrid - Parque Warner. The other one is called Parque de Attraciones (which we may visit too!) The website for PW looked pretty cool and with the help of YouTube, we were able to see what the rides were like.

I'm an individual who enjoys theme parks a lot and I'm not really scared of any rollercoasters/rides unless it has something to do with horror (haunted houses etc). So you could imagine how excited I was to go! PW currently has their Halloween theme going on so it was expected that there would be some 'scary'/horror themed rides or attractions (I definitely wasn't prepared for it). 

It took us about an hour to get there by metro, train and bus. We ended up getting a taxi to the theme park as we arrived at the train station because the PW bus took a very long time to come and quite frankly, we had little patience ^^'. It was just a 10 minute drive away so we were there in no time! The weather was decent (thank God)...after it had been raining most the week! Lucky us...

This blog post isn't going to be a text-based one as I want to show you what the theme park looked like :) - I hope you enjoy the pictures! 

Of course we had to take a group selfie just in front of the entrance whilst we all looked 'normal' and awake! OK so, the new addition to the selfie is Slavena. Slavena is Samra's roommate from Bulgaria :) she is also a teaching assistant in Primary just like myself. 

This ride is called Stuntfall and was probably one of the best rides there - definitely in my top two! Check it out on YouTube if you want to see what it looks like in action! Or maybe I can post a video up myself ^^. I managed to get the front seat of the ride the first time I rode it and thinking back at it now, I don't know how I didn't crap myself! I guess you'll only understand what I mean if you go on the ride yourself...but yes, even though I am not the type to get scared over rollercoasters, I was definitely a little nervous on this ride ^__^' 

Typical of these two to have an ice cream break whilst Samra and I went on the extreme rides 'Batman' and 'Superman'! hehe

OK, so as the night went on, the scarier it got. Zombies started to come out and other people seemed to be very dressed up for the Halloween occasion, whereas us? We seemed to have missed the memo ^__< The park looked very pretty lit up! It kind of reminded me of Disneyland! 

We actually queued up for about an hour for this attraction called "Viernes 13" which translated to English is, "Friday 13th". You can imagine what kind of attraction this was...yep, you guessed correctly - a horror 'walk in the woods'! T__T just queueing up for the ride got my heart racing ^__^' 

We walked through in a group of around 8 people and we weren't the only ones who were scared...even the two guys in front of us were holding onto each other! It was quite an experience...people running out of the dark to scare you with blood down their face and charging at you with chainsaws... we ran (literally) out of the exit! I will never do something like this again xD 

The street above was a street strictly for adults...and now I know why. What happened was a parade of zombies came by, lead by a police car. I honestly thought they were just advertising themselves, showing the audience how good their makeup is...until the music stopped and the zombies came to a standstill. We were in twos at this point - I was stood with Slavena and Esther was with Samra further down. Slavena and I looked at each other in confusion! We were wondering why they had stopped and were just staring at us... As soon as the music started again, the zombies charged straight at us! Forcing us to turn and run for our lives...their makeup was VERY good...and it was extremely scary. I mean, we all know they're poeple...but with their makeup and scary facial expressions...I couldn't help but run, run and run. This was equally as scary as Friday 13th T__T 

The last two pictures are shots of the aftermath of going on the main water ride at Parque Warner. It was pretty much a mini 'Tidal Wave' at Thorpe Park, UK. But, I actually think you get way more wet on this ride! We were even warned before the ride to go buy a raincoat first before going on because we were going to get drenched. We got more than drenched and it's a good job the weather was decent so we were able to dry off fairly quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed that ride! 

To conclude, I definitely would recommend the theme park to anyone visiting Madrid. The queues were very good and the theme park itself was well worth 25 euros. They also had a end Halloween Parade at 10:30pm but it wasn't great. For those of you who have been to Disneyland and have seen the Disney Parade, you'll be very disappointed! But still visit the park :) I haven't got pictures of all the rides I went on (including the extreme rides such as Superman and Batman) but you can always check them out on YouTube! 

I apologise that this post has been published again - I had accidentally deleted the original one and struggled to retrieve it. Thank you for your understanding and I hope you all had a enjoyable time celebrating Halloween :)

- Tiffany 

Photo credit: TeenyTinyMui

http://teenytinymuigoestravelling.blogspot.com/p/home.html

"Miss Tiffany" | Feeling The Love ^__^

OK, so I've been here (Madrid) for almost two months now and I think it's safe to say that the children have settled in well and so have I ^^. My students call me 'Miss Tiffany' and I find that so adorable! ^__^ I really like my two classes - they're both special in their own ways. So, my role as an assistant is to assist my teacher by helping her watch over the students during class, mark their work, help them with reading and speaking, playground duty and sometimes I have to take an entire class of 20 students by myself when Sonia (Spanish Primary 1 teacher) is busy. One of my biggest responsibilities is making classroom materials for Mako. Whenever the students have art class, music or P.E, I am in the classroom brainstorming ideas for the next worksheets to make or any activities we could do as a class or in individual groups. I really enjoy the fact that I create all worksheets for the students as it makes me feel very involved with the class and school. I wanted to show my readers some of the existing material that I have come up with and there are more to come in the near future. 

The main topic/focus for the first semester is "How we organise ourselves in the community". So, the students were to learn about their community and what exactly is involved. Bearing in mind that my students are just 5-7 years old and are learning English as a second language, I think the worksheets are suitable for their abilities. Some are much simpler than others as I have to take into account the fact that not all students have great English speaking and reading skills. In each class there are around 3 or 4 students who attended an International school for infants and therefore they can speak very good English. 

After completing this worksheets, they are to take their English notebook and write sentences from the board using the vocabulary they have learnt from the worksheets! And of course, as kids, their favourite thing to do is colour in every single picture on the paper ^^'. I have just made some worksheets on pronouns and a few for Halloween that is coming up very soon! I hope they enjoy them...I put a lot of effort into them ^___^ I'll post them up soon too! 

I'm not sure why but I have been receiving a lot of pictures from the students whenever they are allowed to draw freely...it does bring a smile to my face though I must admit! It's cute that they want to draw pictures for me to take home and show my family back in England ^^' (they actually say this). And these are the pictures I have been given so far :) 

Children are not all that bad. It's true when they say it's rewarding working as a teacher or teaching assistant. I have definitely formed a bond with most of the students in my class and it's great to know that they feel comfortable enough to come up to me and ask for help or tell me their problems! :)

It's also great for the days when I'm missing home or just feeling under the weather - every morning my students give me a big hug and some even tell me that they love me ^^' 

- Tiffany 

Our First Trip As A Trio | S e g o v i a

Sorry that it has been a while since I last published a post! I've been busy with work and tired from the long working hours and to be honest, I haven't really been up to much recently until this weekend ^^

On Fridays we have half days as I may have already mentioned so we decided to go for dinner in central Madrid to the same Korean restaurant Esther and I tried the first time we had Korean here. I was really craving some spicy food so I suggested to go there and also to take Samra there for her first time. Our reservation wasn't until 20:30pm... Spanish people really like to eat late. I don't have any pictures this time of our food but I had the classic kimchi stew with rice (my absolute favourite), Esther had a classic dish called bibimbap and Samra had seafood noodles ^^... all three dishes were very nice. My stew wasn't as spicy as the first time I tried it but it tasted just as good and made me just as happy! After dinner, we took the metro back to Sol for dessert. We headed to Smöoy for some froyo. Smöoy is also a popular frozen yoghurt parlour here in Spain and I believe we have it in England too. Sol comes alive in the night and there were a few groups of buskers in the city. We watched some rollerbladers doing stunts (jumping over as many as 6 people lying down on the floor) and some amazing dancers! So, after Esther and Samra had eaten their froyo, we realised that we were running tight on time. Our last bus home was at half past 11 and by this time, it was already 23:30pm. We rushed back to the bus stop and yes, we missed our last bus. Online it had told us that there was a bus at 23:45pm...and we weren't the only ones waiting for it. But then came along the security man who was telling everyone to leave! That was slightly awkward... we didn't really know what to do so we followed the group of people who were waiting with us, hoping they had an alternative route home but it looked like they were just as lost as us. We ended up getting a taxi home that cost us a whopping 34 euros. I don't think we will be making the same mistake... but as Samra said, "it's all part of the experience" ^^' 

S E G O V I A - 10.10.2015

The three of us really wanted to get out of Madrid at the weekend and we've heard that Segovia is quite nice so we decided to go there. Our original plan was to go to Segovia for 2 nights, 3 days as it is bank holiday weekend but we struggled to find any available hotel! This didn't stop us from going though, we agreed that we'd rather go for one day than not go at all. Our train tickets (return) cost us just £8.25 each and it took us 1.5 hrs to get there...which isn't too bad. 

We set off around 9am to get the train at Charmatin station and arrived early (on purpose), it being our first time taking the train here, we wanted to get there early to be safe rather than sorry! Upon arrival, the station was very very confusing...the departure boards made no sense as there were different types and the man at the information desk had sent us in the wrong direction! >_< Spanish people are so useless sometimes. Our platform wasn't announced until 2 minutes before the train was due to depart... 2 minutes... ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Spain! Welcome to the extremely laid back world that Spanish people live in - and I'm not even exaggerating. Thankfully, we made it on our train with maybe 1 minute to spare! The train we boarded was regional and so the layout of the train was very peculiar. We were not assigned seats so it was pretty much first come first serve... we had to run towards the front of the train just to get a seat and even then, we were sitting separately. The seats were not comfortable but I was just glad we made it onto the train and we were on our way to our first trip as a trio. 

We arrived in Segovia shortly after 12 and it was quite cold - just over 10 degrees (felt like we were back in England). For those of you who have never heard of Segovia before (like myself) - Segovia is a "historic city northwest of Madrid. It is known for its "rich architectural legacy, including medieval walls, Romanesque churches, a former royal palace and a Gothic cathedral". 

After arriving in Segovia, we walked to the 'middle' of the town where all the main landmarks are and where there were people ^^'...it was quite deserted around the train station and everyone seemed to be walking towards one direction so we followed them. The first monument we came across was the famous Roman Aqueduct of Segovia... (one of the two landmarks we specifically went there for xD). It was truly breathtaking... this Aqueduct is 2,000 years old and is still in immaculate condition! I was gob smacked at how beautiful it was - we named it the Great Wall of Spain ^^'. 

By this point, it was time for lunch and we picked a restaurant that was just in front of the Aqueduct. We certainly had lunch with a view! We actually picked an Italian restaurant to eat at as we were craving some good pasta. The starter and Esther/Samra's main dish were very nice... but sadly mine was not - I was quite disappointed. We chose to sit outside in the sun and embrace the warm weather however we did not take into consideration the amount of flies and wasps that would try and attack us, our food and drinks! So we decided to move to an inside table. 

After lunch, we walked towards the steps of the Roman Aqueduct to get a better view of it. I'm not great with heights (surprisingly) but the view was definitely worth it! We took some great pictures together ^^ here are some of them... 

Do these photos look familiar? We tried to replicate the photos that the infamous couple take every time they go somewhere new, or whatever it is! I think they turned out okay?

No matter what, we will always have each other - the three of us.

The next landmark we visited was The Fairytale Alcázar. This castle is known for inspiring the Disney castle. The Alcázar is one of the monuments to visit whilst in Segovia and it was also a couple of minutes from the beautiful Segovia cathedral. It's really nice to see all these fantastically built buildings and is quite intriguing to be honest. It amazes me and makes me realise how amazing a human being is. Just look at how beautiful this cathedral is...^^

The Fairytale Alcázar

Our actual train home was at 21:10pm but we realised that we were going to miss our last bus back home!! >_< so we checked when the earlier train was and decided to walk back to the station and catch the 18:50pm train. I was worried that we would get in trouble for taking the earlier train and not our booked train but things worked out okay. The ticket man didn't say anything and boy was I glad ^^' thankful for a safe trip home ^^... 

We arrived home at around 10pm and of course we had missed dinner here on campus so we had no option but to order a takeaway. Not the healthiest of meals but a one off is okay right? 

To conclude, I had a very enjoyable day with two of my favourite people here. It was our first trip as a trio and I'm sure we'll have many trips in the near future together...in fact, we have one coming up in a few weeks but I'll leave that as a surprise! Guess where we are going! I'll give you a hint: it's somewhere in Spain xP Again, I apologise for posting late but I hope you enjoyed reading my post :) I appreciate every single view.

- Tiffany 

Photo credit: TeenyTinyMui

http://teenytinymuigoestravelling.blogspot.com/p/home.html

Trying A New Korean Restaurant | Welcome Back, Soomzz!

Samra is finally back! 

OK, I may not have mentioned this in my previous posts but, our third musketeer, Samra had left us for three weeks to go on holiday with her family and to celebrate her birthday! But now she is back ^^ (finally) So, to celebrate her arrival home, we decided to try a new Korean restaurant in central Madrid and to soak up some sun/catch up. Yes...this is the second Korean restaurant we have been to... and I suspect we'll be visiting more and more ^^' 

The restaurant we went to is called Go Hyang Mat. As usual, we bussed it to Moncloa (Madrid's main bus station) and took the metro to Delicias metro station - the nearest one to the restaurant. We had a reservation for 1:30pm and when we arrived, we were confused as to why we even felt the need to make one! The restaurant was fairly empty at the time we arrived, perhaps they opened late because it was a Sunday, I don't know. The decor was modern-ish and looked nicer than the other Korean restaurant Esther and I went to. Everytime I go to a Korean place, I usually go for the same dish every time - you could say I'm slightly obsessed with it and this is Kimchi Stew. But, I decided to try something new and not be boring! This is what we ordered...  - (the first two images are of some complimentary starters)

The food was devine. Each dish was phenomenal and I would definitely recommend anyone to try this restaurant. Although I have never been to Korea myself to try their authentic food, this food was pretty much spot on for my taste buds and I was also very content with their portion sizes. The last picture was what I ordered...spicy seafood noodles. The broth was amazing! I really enjoying eating spicy food so it was perfect for me. 

Oh, here's some 'typical Asian photos' of us and our food! I'm sure you'll agree that they are both very photogenic! T__T

After our feast, we headed back to Sol to take Samra to llaollao (froyo)....which was kind of a fail as she ended up getting her frozen yoghurt from Smöoy! Only because they had chocolate flavour though! 

It only feels so good to have us three back together and I'm so glad Soomz is finally back from her super cool adventures in Asia. It's time to explore Madrid together again and make the most out of the time we have here... time seems to really be flying by quickly over here. We've been working in Spain for just over one month now and it felt like just yesterday I moved here. 

Here's to making new memories with two great friends who I'm lucky to have met ^^ 

 ^___^ 

- Tiffany 

Photo credit: TeenyTinyMui

http://teenytinymuigoestravelling.blogspot.com/p/home.html