Valencia

After two and a half short months in Spain my Christmas vacation started this past Friday. After a rowdy faculty Christmas dinner and few hours of sleep Brandon and I headed up to Murcia where we joined Anna, another auxiliar, and left for Valencia. After some initial confusion while checking into the hostel and trying to establish that Brandon wasn't a wanted criminal we headed out into the historic heart of the city for pizza and a night tour.









The next day we did a marathon tour of the same area, the central market, the restaurant/bar neighborhoods, all the little stands selling local products and handicrafts, all the big plazas, and all the crucial monuments. We enjoyed breakfast at Starbucks (I missed American coffee) and a lunch of paella, cerveza, and pollo. At night we did a DIY bar crawl with some Australians we met in our hostel and some Spanish kids we met on the street. The bars are more expensive than in Aguilas but definitely more fun. There was a Brazilian band playing and I got to sing along to some songs in Portuguese (not to brag about my polyglotism or anything). On the way home I learned the word "battler," Australian slang for someone between a loser and a trooper.









The next day I somehow was the only one with a hangover after a mere four or five drinks. My body rejects alcohol I guess. As a real battler I carried on to the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies. The name is in Valenciano, the local language. This place was amazing. If you are ever in Valencia, go just to see the architecture. Inside there is a theater, a science museum, and an aquarium. We only went into the aquarium because the place is so expensive. Admission there was over 18 euros with a student discount.









In brief Valencia is fantastic because of the following reasons: horchata, paella, seafood, beaches, architecture, nightlife, shopping, linguistic diversitry, and a dried riverbed that has been converted into a park. Go there.

Click on the title of the blog to see my facebook photo album.

Let it snow(ish)

I’m writing this from my living room in Granada, the electric heater blowing warm air down on me as I sit on the sofa, bundled up with tights under my jeans and a heavy sweatshirt. Our table wears its three layers of winter tablecloths, and underneath the space heater is chugging away. The windows are fogged up, but if I get up close or crack one open—as my flatmate did just moments ago—I can see the sleet, yes, sleet falling outside.

Welcome to southern Spain in the winter.

The other day I received an email from my best friend’s father, and he said, and I quote: “Baltimore is rainy and cold today-I’m picturing [you] warm and sunny in the south of Spain. You needn’t correct me if that’s wrong.”

I won’t correct him (though he may be reading this, and if so, I offer my apologies), but I think that you all have the right to know the truth: Granada in the winter is not warm, nor exclusively sunny. This city, located in a valley surrounded by the Sierra Nevada, is known for the most extreme temperatures in Spain, according to my flatmate. In the summer, I’m told, the heat is often unbearable, and in the winter, it’s not uncommon for temperatures to dip below freezing.

Though the weather here is positively mild when compared to the Midwest or northern Europe, the almost universal lack of central heating does require some rather creative solutions to the cold. One is the use of long, heavy tablecloths, under which hide legs and space heaters. Sometimes, the heater is built into the table. I’m also a fan of the electric blanket (perfect when switched on fifteen minutes before bedtime), and have taken to going for a run when I need to get the blood running to my frozen hands and feet. When you add to these the ordinary techniques—coats worn inside, tights or leggings layered under pants, laptops lying on one’s lap, cramming onto small sofas with three of your closest friends, imbibing a constant stream of hot beverages—it makes for a rather comfortable winter, overall. Still, waiting while the laundry hangs to dry is a rather long and laborious process.

The sun’s supposed to reemerge tomorrow, and by midweek the temperature’s predicted to reach fifty again: more normal weather for December in Granada. Until then, however, I’ll keep layering on the clothes and tablecloths, and hope that the freezing rain doesn’t make the paving stones too slippery. You can bet they’re not salting the pavement.

física o química... some sort of strange obsession

Among the many things I've been up to lately (going to Aguilas, Barcelona, and London in the last three weekends being among the chiefly notable "things"), I have found myself becoming more and more confident and natural in my own práctica del idioma (loosely, "usage of the language"). In the past few weeks I've had many moments of fluid and coherent conversation in Spanish.  I don't find it a matter of vergüenza (shame) to admit that these moments come in between others that are not as great or as glamorous, for instance one in which I found myself studdering just trying to ask a Spanish couple if they'd been waiting long at a London Italian restaurant we were in last Friday night, but it's all a part of this happy progress. Granted that like my fellow bloggers I came to Spain with a bit of prior experience living in a Spanish-speaking environment, and thus I'm a bit more used to this process. Two steps forward with a step back de vez en cuando (once in a while), entendés? As I like to describe it, it's like starting up a car in the cold: the car moves regardless the temperature, of course, but it usually takes a little time for it to warm up.

One thing that I've added to supplement my understanding and immersion in the language this time around has been spending a little time in front of the television at least once a week. I say "supplement" because I do not think that television is the best way to straight up learn a language; for that you need context, conversation, and the ability to ask questions and check understanding in an interactive environment. It is certainly a fun way to test one's understanding, or at the very least, test one's comprehension of vocabulary.

Discussion of television's didactic uses and advantages or disavantages aside, watching television is something that at home in the states I never really did with too much regularity, and when there was a show that I did want to watch, it was usually in the comedic, cartoonish, or historical vein (Quite the spread there, huh?). True to form, I do find myself watching comedy shows and the occasional Garfield and Friends rerun on Saturday mornings. Plus I have been known to watch whole movies some Saturday and Sunday afternoons and all programs, and movies for that matter, that were written and produced in English are dubbed entirely in Spanish.

But the show that I've quickly grown addicted to is Física o Química (literal translation Physical or Chemical, as it pertains to relationships). It's a weekly drama about students and professors at an instituto (high school) in Madrid. It's the kind of thing Fox would run (or maybe the WB if it thought to be a bit more daring in its on-screen explict amorous behavior), complete with beautiful people, overly exaggerated situations, giving way to exaggerated problems, allowing for exaggerated acting-- you know, the sort of situations that could be so easily laid to rest with just a little bit of honesty-- but then, that's what makes a show like this so successful. And of course it's the show that all the pibes, chavales, and cool tíos y tías (slang for kids, teens, and cool and other assorted people) watch when they should be doing their homework on a Monday night. It's quite a bit of the pop-cultural tortilla española. hehe.

What's more, it's become something of a weekly tradition with my flatmate Mario and me: at 10:15 we sit down and watch the end of El Hormiguero, a comedy variety / current events show hosted conveniently just before FoQ (the popular abbreviation for Física o Química, and also the name of a fan-magazine about said show) on a rival channel so it can also grab some good pre-main event ratings, Mario with his computer and university classwork in front of him, me with usually just a bottle of water of my dinner if I haven't already eaten by then, and usually a bag of sunflower seeds between us.

The show starts at 10:30 and ends a little after midnight, as do other popular "prime time" television series. It's not actually much longer than an hour, but the commercial breaks add on extra time of course, each break's length is actually predetermined and told to the viewer as it is about to start, promising to take no more tha "30 seconds" or "one minute" or sometimes "5 minutes" (the imagination races to think what would happen to the channel's ratings should they go even a split second over this strict time limit...).

It's good fun, and I haven't missed an episode since beginning watching in mid-October. It recently finished up its second season, so naturally I had to ask a few questions about previous episodes, but it's pretty straightforward: girls like boys. boys like girls. some boys like multiple girls. some girls like multiple boys. sometimes professors like students... etc, etc. Sometimes someone comes down with some unfortunate disease, is found to be participating in some unsavory extracirricular activity, but it's all in a day's work for these characters.

Check it out for yourself, if you'd like. It's worth a gander.

Have a good week! Chau for now,

-Nick

links:

Official Homepage of the show

Física o Química on the Antena 3 webpage, the network that broadcasts the show.

El Hormiguero, for good measure (kind of a Jay Leno meets Conan O'Brien meets the Muppets type of show)

* note: all linked pages are in Spanish

Física o Química, Monday nights at 22:30 Spanish local time. check satellite listings (maybe?)

Keeping it Real

After almost a year of living abroad, I'm finally proud to say I'm American. I know what you're thinking: "radical Obama supporter. . . a la Michelle." Well, let me assure you that, while the results of the election are certainly a factor in my new-found patriotism, they're not the only one. The entire nature of my experience in Spain has encouraged me to take a look in the mirror and accept, for better or worse, my American nationality.

Only now, looking back, do I realize that when I traveled to Mexico and Argentina, I did so with the naive and impossible hope of actually becoming a local. The reasons were three-fold: 1.) I'd heard my parents' accounts of the ugly Americans they'd been embarrassed by during their own travels and was determined not only not to be one, but not even to be associated with any that my local friends might have at one time met themselves. 2.) I desperately wanted to speak fluent Spanish and without the American accent that made me cringe whenever I heard it on anyone else. And 3.) I was bored with America and thought everywhere that wasn't home was better. I remember passing local children in both countries and envying them for their perfect Spanish as well as for other cultural traits I assumed they took for granted, like the ability to move their hips to salsa or to make tortillas from scratch. In short, I wanted to be Latina.

In Spain, my perspective and goals have changed. Becoming Latina is, mercifully, no longer my objective. I speak a level of Spanish that I'm happy with and have accepted that I'll always have some degree of an accent that my Spanish friends have deemed either mild American with a Mexican lilt or Puerto Rican, despite my never having been to Puerto Rico. I have made some great American friends who have done much to lift the stigma I once held against my fellow Americans abroad, as well as who've given me the opportunity to honor American traditions like Thanksgiving which, only after celebrating in these friends' company, did I realize how much I loved. And finally, I am, probably for the first time ever, truly interested in American politics and current events and no longer shy about discussing them with locals.

You don't have to live in America right now to realize just how critical this moment in our history is. In fact, living abroad and seeing Obama's name and the word "crisis" on the front page of every newspaper each day probably makes me even more aware of this reality than I would otherwise be at home. The interest that Spaniards and the local international community take in American politics is both astounding and, for me, contagious. The days prior to the election, nearly all of the teachers at the school where I work knew how each candidate was doing and what the latest news was. The day after Obama won, I was congratulated over and over again as if his victory were my own personal achievement. Never before have I been more aware of my country's influence in the world, nor of my own responsibility for determining what that is. As a British friend of mine recently lamented, "When America sneezes, the rest of us gets a cold."

This isn't to say that I've come to see America as the center of everything; in fact, my opinion is quite the opposite. Getting my news through outside sources like the BBC news Podcast and local Spanish newspapers makes me realize just how self-absorbed as a nation we are, relative to most European countries. While these news media offer in depth (and much needed) analyses of the economic situation in the U.S., they take nearly as much time on the wars in Africa and the bombing in Mumbai which, for huge numbers of people, are much more immediate concerns than the looming American recession. If it's true, as my British friend suggests, that the rocks we throw send some of the biggest ripples through the world, I think it would do all of us some good to remember that we're not the only ones with an arm capable of rocking the boat. 

... In the meantime, I can't wait to be home for Christmas!

Video on the world's reaction to Obama's victory

Video on Cuba's reaction

Photo albums

I don't have anything insightful to say at present but I have awesome photos:

Alhambra

Granada

Murcia

Mojacar

Living in a place as inspiring as Granada....

...it's really no wonder how Sarah is drawn to participate in the 50,000 word novel writing contest this month.

I myself, like Paige before me, went down to the heart of Andalusia this past weekend to visit Sarah, see Laura as well (who was also visiting that weekend -- come to think of it, I think it was due to some well placed peer pressure on Paige's part), and of course to take in the wonderful sights of the city and the immediate surrounding area. Thus I can say with certainty that if just touring its many elegant avenues, the even more numerous smaller passages, and its near countless winding alleyways and narrow cooridors compelled me to write as many pages in my personal journal as I did-- not to mention take as many photos of my surroundings as I did-- imagine, then, what it would do to live there for a far more extended period of time!

I came down by bus on Friday and came back to Ciudad Real by train on Sunday night. Both traveling experiences served to give me a more solid idea of the difference in efficiency and facility of each mode of transportation, but more importantly-- at least for my ever-hungry traveler's spirit-- it gave me time to pause, look, and reflect on the gorgeous and multi-faceted terrain of the Spanish landscape. Especially coming in by bus.

To come into an Andalusian town by bus is to be given a long, warm, and disarming welcome to, for my knowledge, the most beautiful region of all of Spain, which furthermore captivates the traveler in such a way as to not ever want to leave. Picture multitudes of rolling green hills, orchards of olive trees in every direction, as well as the rough but elegant curve of desert sands and high rocky mountains-- ALL living together in peaceful, natural, symbiotic harmony. It is a magnificent treasure to behold. And completely encantador - charming - (though as wonderful a word as it is in Spanish, in English I don't find the translation is as strong a word as I'd like to employ. Bah, such is life.).

Then of course there's the trademark and emblematic impression of the white-washed housing communities, which are the start and nucleus of most every Andalusian town, big or small. They are themselves beautiful and precious to look upon. Or at least I, for one, was smitten.

But enough of glowing introductions. The town of Granada is itself a treasure, as I think I've already said, both cosmopolitan metropolis and renewed crossroad of diverse cultures and backgrounds. I stayed very close to city center and so was able to get a taste-- both literally and figuratively-- of these aspects which make Granada the veritable pomegranate of bursting color and flavor from which it draws its name in Spanish. Northern African and Middle Eastern flavors and delights-- vices, yes-- and traditions are quickly becoming treasured pasttimes of this once great Moorish city, and thus everywhere there is the smell of kabob, hookah, and the sounds of darbuka and tambourines and tiny cymbals.

The food: delicious. The tapas scene: stupendous. The ice cream: tremendous... but I'll spare you the juicy, delicious details... The main landmark attraction (the Alhambra): as Paige rightly put it, no wonder it was considered for the list of one of the great wonders of the world. Sweeping vistas, humble halls, elaborate detail in every column and wall facade, impressive gardens, and a plethora of fountains is how I will here sum up my trip to that venerable last stronghold of the old Moorish guard. Though to break it down by its individual features does no justice to the place that is truly made all the more mighty and majestic due to the sum of those parts.

I would write more about Granada here, but I do believe that over time Sarah will give all a sense of the place and its climate and so I do not need to say much more, except to add-- at no small aside, but rather as a means of giving thanks and gratitude to that same lady-- that I much enjoyed  my weekend there in large part due to her help, coordination, and recommendations.

So for now I sign off with a few lines about this current week, a few photos of my past weekend, and a little more about what the outlook for the next few weeks holds in store. First off, this week is progressing beautifully. I feel that my ability to manage in the classroom, if not managing in my speech, is coming along smoothly, and I am feeling overall more comfortable with the situations that I am faced with. Yesterday I was acknowledged and complimented on my work by one teacher in particular whose opinion I respect and admire. It was after what I similarly felt had been my best in-class time to date in which I had both kept their attention for the majority of the time, and had more importantly explained and taught a good deal of material that they seemed to understand and comprehend.

In the weeks to come I've got some fun out of Ciudad Real travel planned. In two weeks it's off to a certain southeastern province of Spain to join in celebrating the birthday of fellow blogger Laura B, and then the last weekend of November I'm going to Barcelona to meet up with an old camp friend, see the sights as well as take in a Spanish fútbol game: Espanyol v. Sporting Gijon. Should be a blast.

Chau for now, and long live Granada,

-Nick

poetry like only the passage of a dozen centuries could have created

"la elección del mundo"

On Tuesday, November 4 as I climbed into José Ángel's car on our way to El Robledo for the day, there was the usual Spanish salutation of "Good morning" followed by the equally customary "How are you" that sounds more like "How are jew?" in his wonderfully slurred English-Spanish mix, that I purposely do not call Spanglish not for fear of copywright infringement but rather due to it's more Iberian and less Mexican / Central American source. But on this Tuesday, the fourth of November, 2008, he added an extra solitary word, with the inflection of curious interrogation: "Obama?"

Living in Spain during this period of election speculations and preparations has had many advantages and disadvantages. Namely, I'd like to state that one advantage is that there was (and still is) never any lack of investigative journalism done on the subject of what's the latest in United States politics, and thus even if Friday night's Presidential Debate isn't spoken about in the newspaper until the Sunday morning edition, you know it will make the front page and be given at least three pages of space for review and opinion. The main disadvantage is not that what happens on Saturday Night Live is only given but a paragraph's summary in print or broadcast journalism (in fact, that such things are reported at all is something to consider), but rather that being six hours ahead all the time meant having to decide whether or not to sacrifice the time in between midnight and six AM, Wednesday, November 5 in order to watch the minute by minute coverage of the results as they came in. Whilst I was anxiously checking washingtonpost.com at 1 in the afternoon on Tuesday, I had to frequently remind myself that people were only just going to the polls with their Starbucks coffee and Dunkin donut (or donuts, if they wanted to be generous to their fellow line-waiters).

Thus, upon waking on Wednesday the 5th, to the sounds of my iPod playing "Hail to the Chief" (not by poetic happenstance, but rather on purpose), I rushed to the living room of my apartment as soon as I could, flipped on TVEspaña 1 and let the results come as they would.

Furthermore, if the coverage and attention given this election by the Spanish press and public is any indication, the status of the United States is certainly one of great importance, or, at the very least, great interest, for better or for worse. As a few of the professors at el Valle remarked on Monday during our weekly professor's luncheon, the election is not just for the United States, it is "la elección [más importante, supuestamente dado las opiniones de ésta gente] del mundo" (the [most important] election [given the opinions expressed by those present] for the world). It is worth echoing an observation already mentioned that to look at today's edition of El Mundo makes one feel that he or sshe has not really left home as, because they can see page after page dedicated to the summary, discussion, and minutae of the election results and the people who made it possible (if not for the obvious difference that all such information is conveyed in Spanish and not in English). In particular, the Op-ed section today either centered around speculation about what will be the first moves of the President Elect, how he will have to go about proving that he can bring the change he has promised, or was simply just thinny veiled elation and relief upon receiving official word of the new face of the United States.

I've even learned things -- if not just rediscovering things -- about the political history of my own country here through this press. It's a neat thing for anyone here to experience... assuming of course, that this "anyone" comes from the United States.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Before I log off and go to bed, I feel I need to say one other thing about this week that I couldn't think how to tie into the the above discourse, though it is related. While sharing some tapas on Monday night with a few British friends in the Plaza Mayor, I was approached by a man who asked if I was from the US. When I answered affirmative, he told me that he worked for the local branch of a national radio network, Cadena Ser, and that they had been looking for Estadounidenses living in Ciudad Real to come in and speak on the topic of the election's outcome this Wednesday evening, but that so far he had been unable to find anyone. Long, lucky story short, they interviewed and recorded me last night at 7:00 PM local time and broadcast it this afternoon at 1:00 PM. I was unfortunately not able to listen in, having still been in classes with the kids, but I was told by the mayor of El Robledo (the town where the school is located) that it was a very nice interview (the station told me they'd send me a link to find the online archive feed, but I haven't received anything from them yet. When I do, I'll be sure to post it with a translated transcript).

My, my, my... first local broadcast news and meeting the President of the region, now a one on one interview on the local branch of their national public radio system. What's next? A guest appearance on Física o Química, the number one hit teen drama on the air in the country right now (and also the subject of what I had planned to talk about -- though still can next time -- before deciding that election-based content was clearly a more important matter to discuss)? One can dream, eh?

All right. A picture or two of the last few days, and then I'm out. Chau for now,

-Nick.





watching the results, early wednesday morning on TVEspaña 1

An American in Aguilas

I’m surprised. I’m surprised to be the first one to write about experiencing the U.S. presidential elections from abroad. I’m surprised that every news channel broadcasts coverage of our election as if it were the Spanish election. As we speak I’m watching “Estos no son las noticias,” a comedy show similar to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. In today’s episode the (white) host has painted her face black and put on an afro in the spirit of “black democracy”. I’m surprised at the lack of a taboo in Spain. I’m surprised at the lack of a taboo in Spain on certain personal questions, such as who I voted for (other favorites include how old I am and do I have a boyfriend). Hell, I’m honestly surprised that Obama won! I thought for sure they’d find a way to take the vote like they did in 2000.
Being in Spain during this historic election makes me feel a little left out. I see clips on the news here of street parties in DC and I wish I could share the joy with other UMD students (a shot for every electoral vote that goes to Obama? Maybe not…). When I told my French roommate that I cried a little this morning when I found out who won, he couldn’t help but laugh at me. I may be a little melodramatic, but I think any American can sympathize with the emotional moment we are experiencing as a nation. If Obama lives up to his promises this could mean the end of Sarah Palin’s favorite phrase, the Bush Doctrine; the end of the War in Iraq, a new interest in social welfare programs and the environment, and a stable economy and international relations. I can tell you first hand that the world accepts us again. Not to mention the obvious, that our first African-American president has generated more support and enthusiasm than any presidential candidate I’ve seen in my (short) life.
As I pass students in the hallways at school, they give me high fives, ask me how I’m feeling about the outcome of the election, and shout “Go Obama!” and “Claro que podemos!” They ask difficult questions too: “Will the KKK kill Obama?”, “Is there really racism in the USA? But aren’t they supposed to be the most advanced?”, “Why does anyone support McCain?” (given the overwhelming international support for Obama, they find it hard to understand that nearly half the USA actually doesn’t support him). How would you answer these questions? As a mini-ambassador to a few hundred Spanish high school students I do my best, but there are some things that you have to experience for yourself in order to fully understand (and even with a lifetime of living in the States many American phenomena escape me).
Despite my increasing fluency in Spanish, I still can’t completely translate American social and racial politics, so I keep it basic: I think Obama challenges racism in the U.S., but only time will tell how much influence he has. Since America is a diverse nation, it’s only natural that there are people who differently, and we try to respect their opinions, even if they believe that the rich should have higher tax cuts than the working class. Most of all I think that many Americans are optimistic that change will come, and that the United States will live up to it’s reputation as “advanced,” socially as well as technologically. Claro que podemos.

Cádiz, City of Entertainers

My personal favorite from "Zombies go to class," the runner-up of my school's Halloween classroom decorating contest. The sign says, "I was killed by English."

Another decoration from the same contest. This one says: "Died dancing Shakira."

One of the greatest discoveries I've made in the last month is that Gaditanos, as the people from Cadiz are called, are not only incredibly kind but also extremely entertaining. I suppose this shouldn't come as that big of a surprise, considering that Cadiz is a city whose Carnival is one of the most renowned in the world, second only to Rio de Janeiro's. Gaditanos are, without a doubt, masters of fun as well as impressively creative.

More than that, they are performers, capable of turning every space into a stage and every moment, into a reason to laugh or break out into applause. For example, last week in the open-air market, an acting troupe of four men dressed in tuxedos and top-hats came parading through the crowd, carrying a coffin -- a skit nobody seemed to understand but everyone found amusing. Another time, my friend and I were walking behind two attractive women in the town center. As we rounded the corner, a man chatting with his friend outside a bar paused to deliver them an impromptu flamenco song. This was clearly not your average piropo, or catcall, even for these local beauties, and they stopped for a minute or two to give the man the attention they felt he deserved.

Maybe the best example of the Gaditanos' natural theatrical abilities is the Halloween celebration at the school where I teach. In an effort to create awareness about this originally Anglo-Saxon holiday, the English department sponsored a classroom decorating competition for the upper-level classes. To every one's delight the students went above and beyond their duty of decorating. Entering each room was like walking into a different scary movie. In the winning classroom, the acting was so stellar that I stayed in one corner, hoping to avoid the kids on the floor, pulling on the judges' legs and moaning like dead people -- it was that terrifying (and equally hilarious.)

While I enjoy most of the performances I see, I do wish I could understand the local manner of speaking better to absorb the wit of the actors. To help myself out, I'm reading a book called El Habla de Cadiz, a dictionary of local terms that also includes the phrases' etymology and cultural evolution. Under "Animacion," or "animation," it says: "En el peculiar sentido gaditano, es 'un estado de animo colectivo, una predisposicion a manifestarse en publico, a contemplar y ser contemplado." A rough translation: "In the peculiar gaditano sense, it is the state of collective energy, a predisposition to show oneself in public, to contemplate and be contemplated." 

What does this mean to me as a resident of Cadiz?  Mainly that I'm more engaged with my surroundings than ever, having been blessed with free access to a nearly endless series of "shows." As I say more often than anything these days, for yet another reason: ¡Que viva España! (Sarah, consider the competition for the best city started.)

Visit my Facebook page to see the videos of these performances and others! (Blogger is not behaving.) VIDEOS

When you're working 12 hours a week...

How to Stay Busy in Spain, When You're Working 12 Hour Weeks
(Sarah's Version)

1. Get into an exercise routine

I go running about four times a week. I run along the Río Genil, where there's a bit of a long narrow park popular with strolling couples and dog owners. The other day I had a rather large dog chase and bark at me for half a length of the river, which was pretty fun.

2. Take public transport.

When I'm working, I probably spend about 1.5 hours per day getting myself from home to work and back again. This pales in comparison to my Buenos Aires commutes, but it's still a lovely, relaxing part of the day (except when I have to run to catch the bus). Though the actual bus ride is only 20 minutes each way, it is an excellent time for jotting down ideas in my notebook and grinning to myself because of the fabulous views of the snow-topped Sierra Nevada, which look something like this on my bus ride. Sometimes I have trouble not singing to myself as I rock out to my iPod, and I must look quite silly to my fellow travelers.

3. Go out for tapas.

This is a great way to spend hours and hours. Go for dinner, go for a late night drink and snack, go in the afternoon for lunch. Tapas are all-purpose, and come in many varieties. We have two favorite tapas bars so far in Granada: Café om Kalsum for Moroccan flavors; Poë for other international flavors, mostly Brazilian.

4. When you're not eating tapas, always eat home cooked meals.

I cook every day, except for frozen pizza days, which come around about once a week. I have lots of time to cook, so if you have any recipes that don't require more than 30 minutes of oven time (ours starts to act up after that), send them my way! I've become a big fan of making banana chocolate chip (cut from a chocolate bar) pancakes on weekends: that is, sometime between Thursday and Sunday. This weekend I'm giving scones a second Spanish go-round for a friend's birthday.

5. Read.

Okay, so my reading so far hasn't exactly been educational, other than the 100 pages or so I've read of Multitude, but I swear, I will go to the library to get a card one of these days. But, I did read the entire Twilight series in eBook form, courtesy of a friend. (Stop judging me.) I'm also a big fan of Samanta Schweblin's short stories, and I've downloaded several Very Important Foundational Texts of Latin American Literature to get cracking on. I'm trying to stay up to date on American news by reading the Washington Post and Slate (my favorite!), but I tend to prefer watching their election sketch videos... Sarah the Diva! The Anti-America America in Pro-America America! The Mainstream Media Needs a Hug!

6. ...And I guess I've strayed into the realm of video.

Sometimes I watch episodes of classy television shows, like Gossip Girl and Supernatural, illegally on the internet. One of my flatmates -- who's a student, not a language assistant -- is addicted to TV series (her words, not mine), and routinely watches entire seasons of television shows. Today, to reward myself for SENDING IN MY VOTE I watched a Real Movie, which I'd brought with me on DVD. It's called Me Without You, and it was just about as heartbreaking as I remembered.

7. Commit to do something completely insane.

I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, a writing project in which crazy people like me attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in November. I've been busy planning and plotting, and am very excited to start. I'm in the process of compiling a grocery list of novel-writing snacks to buy, and I've already stocked up on coffee. Anyone crazy enough to join in?

Some other day I'll write a more serious list of things to do in Spain, but really, this pretty much sums up what I've been doing recently. Let the mocking begin.

Ode to the French

Since coming to Aguilas I have to confess I have learned more French than Spanish thanks to my French roommate and his friends who often come to visit. Sadly, the phrases I use most are ferme ta gul (no idea if I spelled it right) and je suis sul (likewise). To save my reputation I'll let Sarah translate. My Spanish has improved a bit, however, since these kids all learned "proper" Spanish, or the Iberian variety, while I stick to manejar instead of conducir and aca instead of aqui. Earlier, when I commented on Sarah's post that I'd jumped into Castillian Spanish I didn't realize how deep the water was. So much of what I say gets my point across but sounds foreign and awkward to Spanish ears. I would never know this had it not been for my French comrades who constantly correct me; if only I had a euro for every time I heard no se dice eso en España (you don't say that in Spain). Merci bokou!
While my Iberian Spanish progresses step by step, my gastronomic adventures go by leaps and bounds. The short list of some crazy foods I've tried in the last few weeks:
Duck pate
Pig head pate
Pig body pate (God bless the French and their creativity with blended meats)
Fried fish testacles
Octopus (or squid?)
Not to mention all the normal Spanish food, tapas of every variety: potato omelet, potato sandwich (yup, just bread and potato, I love starch!!), pork and pepper sandwiches, jamon serrano and cheese, mushrooms (this is experimental for me), "salad" (which can be a mix of any kind of food, vegetables or no), chorizo and other sausasge varieties, and all kinds of fried fish and seafood. Thank god "mas por favor" is the same in every Spanish speaking country!

The Alhambra in Writerly Company

"I remember Granada as one should remember a sweetheart who has died." F.G.L

This weekend, I traveled to Granada, a city at the base of the Sierra Nevadas, to visit Sarah, my good friend and co-writer of this blog. As an added bonus, I was able to witness the native city of one of my favorite poets, Federico García Lorca, and to experience the tragic beauty of the place he often said had shaped him into the writer he was.

The highlight, not surprisingly, was the Alhambra, an astounding hilltop Moorish fortress that, in my opinion, more than lived up to its reputation as a nominee for the Seven Wonders of the World. Constructed in the 14th century by the Moors in an effort to mask their diminishing power, the Alhambra stands as a testament to the depth of the Arabs' influence in Spain and, in particular, Andalucía.

Lorca considered the Catholic Reconquest that followed the Alhambra's construction and ended Moorish reign a "disaster," since it destroyed a unique society in which Muslims, Jews and Christians had co-existed for seven centuries. Despite the Reconquest having taken place long before his time, he identified profoundly with those who had been unfairly accused, converted, and ultimately driven from their homes and country. "Being from Granada gives me a sympathetic understanding of those who are persecuted," he once wrote, "of the gypsy, the black, the Jew... of the Moor, whom all Grandinos carry with us."

For Lorca, the Alhambra epitomized this and all suffering. In his play "Doña Rosita the Spinster and the Language of Flowers," one of the characters calls the Moorish palace "a jasmine of grief." The water that filled the pools and fountains in the Alhambra, the adjacent gardens, and the two rivers that cut through the city below, was, to Lorca, the most somber element of all. Listening to the trickle of the fountains and the slow current of the dry rivers, the sad pulse of this ancient city and its history became real for me as well.

Personally, though, I felt more giddy from the incredible beauty of the Alhambra's design than depressed by the realization that its creators had been annihilated. Call me insensitive, but as I stood in one of the palace's courtyard, beside intricately molded stucco walls, finely carved wooden ceilings and elaborate muqarnas (honeycomb or stalactite) vaulting, all of which reflected in the central pools like an Islamic mirage of heaven, it seemed nothing less than a miracle that I could see such a thing in Western Europe at all.

For those of you who speak Spanish, here is an excerpt from Lorca's play Bodas de Sangre, a personal favorite of mine:

Leonardo:

¡Que vidrios se me clavan en la lengua!

Porque yo quise olvidar

y puse un muro de piedra

entre tu casa y la mía.

Es verdad. ¿No lo recuerdas?

Y cuando te vi de lejos

me eché en los ojos arena.

Pero montaba a caballo

y el caballo iba a tu puerta.

Con alfileres de plata

mi sangre se puso negra,

y el sueño me fue llenando

las carnes de mala hierba.

Que yo no tengo la culpa

que la culpa es de la tierra

y de ese olor que te sale

de los pechos y las trenzas.

Novia:

¡Ay que sinrazón! No quiero

contigo cama ni cena,

y no hay minuto del día

que estar contigo no quiera,

porque me arrastras y voy,

y me dice que me vuelva

y te sigo por el aire

como una brizna de hierba.

He dejado a un hombre duro

y a toda su descendencia

en la mitad de la boda

y con la corona puesta.

Para ti será el castigo

y no quiero que lo sea.

¡Déjame sola! ¡Huye tú!

No hay nadie que te defienda.

For more photos of my trip to Granada, check out my Facebook album "GRANADA"

Sources:

Gibson, Ian. "Literary Pilgrimages: Federico García Lorca." May 10, 1998. The New York Times. October 22, 2008. www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/10/specials/lorca.html

Stainton, Leslie. "The Granada of Federico García Lorca." May 4, 1986. The New York Times. October 22, 2008. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9A0EED81E3AF937A35756C0A960948260

The Mothers of Pueblo Nuevo de Bullaque

Today I write from the smaller of the two schools that I work out throughout the week, named Pueblo Nuevo de Bullaque after the small pueblito in which it is located. There are only about 25 kids, ages 3 to 12, four professors, and thus the three classes that meet are smaller, more intimate, and mixed in terms of the grade levels.

I only go in on Wednesdays and work with each of the three classes, pre-k and 1st grade, 2nd and 3rd, 4th through 6th, and then, after the little recreo (recess) period, I meet with a handful of the parents and hold an English 101 session with them.

At first, that last bit was the most daunting and vergüenza-inducing bit of my week (vergüenza literally means "shame" but here, "hestitation" or fear"). The first day I arrived at the school, I was informed that I would meet the parents that same day. Immediately my mind went racing to figure out how to gague their prior-understanding, what topics to cover, and at what pace to move through the material. It obviously wasn't the most well-structured agenda and we bounced around quite a bit, but at the end of it I had come away with some important notes for the next class.

1) When they told me that they wanted to learn the most basic English, "o sea, lo más básico de lo básico," they meant it word for word --or perhaps even letter for letter.

2) I should plan it by topics that relate to topics that they would most likely need to use.

3) I should plan more than we will be able to cover in that one hour session.

It's only been three sessions, but I feel that the more recent two have been great improvements to the first. Today we reviewed salutations and good-byes and began to work on vocabulary and simple questions about the family (who's who, where do they live, how many ________ do you have, y ya está -- that's all), and I really came away from that lesson feeling that I had really done well and that a comfortable atmosphere had begun to develop within our little study group.

It's a very rewarding feeling to feel like you've helped someone, but I think there's more to it than that: I think they're helping me too. In "lo más básico" of terms and ways, after all these years of having it the other way, they're now helping me to understand how difficult it is to understand English and what it really means for one to speak too fast in his native tongue. Additionally, I'm learning how to properly form certain Spanish phrases, acquiring some new ones, and dropping some bad habits I've formed in my own acquisition of the language. There's a third and final part here that I haven't yet been able to articulate... I'll post it when it surfaces. Suffice to say, at the risk of sounding repetitive, it's a very good feeling and a rewarding experience.

On the whole, it's been a good week. Some teaching, some running in the park near the apartment, some football watching, and some good cooking. It's good to feel at one with the universe, even if you can't always say what's on your mind in the local language.

chau for now,

-Nick

Columbus Day, or the Challenge of Naming

Yesterday was Columbus Day, known here in Spain as the Día de la Hispanidad (Hispanic Day). The city of Granada celebrated with a parade, complete with two marching bands, an enormous Madonna, and many suited procession participants; in Madrid, I’ve read, the festivities include appearances by the Spanish royal family, an air show, and a military parade.

But what exactly are we celebrating, and why?

One way to approach the question is by considering the different names the holiday is known by around the world. As a very wise person once told me, words are never innocent, and naming is an act of creation that aims to establish a certain version of truth. That being said, onto the names.

Columbus Day (and the anti-Columbus Day movements)

In the U.S., the holiday is commonly known as Columbus Day. This is fairly straightforward: as the name indicates, we are commemorating the day that Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Americas: October 12, 1492 in the Julian Calendar. As children in the States, we are taught that Columbus discovered America, and celebrate his journey of almost mythical proportions across the sea "through sunshine, wind and rain" to the New World. Like the Founding Fathers, he is immortalized in statues and monuments, like this one I recently saw at Coit Tower in San Francisco:



Standing tall and majestic on the summit of Telegraph Hill, Columbus seems to be surveying the expanse of the San Francisco Bay, the American flag flying high before him. Perhaps the crucifix-laden explorer’s juxtaposition with the American flag over this West Coast bay is the symbol par excellence of the transformation of Columbus into a mixed and paradoxical metaphor in the U.S.: the epic oversea adventure of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María as precursors to the voyage of the Mayflower; the quest for gold, glory, and later, expansionist power for the Crown as models for American manifest destiny; the triumph of Christianity over the savagery of the Americas as a reaffirmation of the nation’s Christian values (and a contradiction to the ideals of religious freedom).

Many people in the U.S. recognize the inconsistencies of celebrating Columbus while we laud life, liberty, and justice for all. In Berkeley, October 12 is celebrated as Indigenous People’s Day; in Denver, protesters are a yearly fixture at the Columbus Day parade; in Hawaii, advocacy groups reject the local version of the holiday, Discoverer’s Day, by celebrating indigenous cultures; in South Dakota, the holiday is Native American Day.

Day of the Race and Hispanic Day

Names emphasizing native cultures, such as those just mentioned and the Day of Indigenous Resistance in Venezuela (adopted following the 2002 arrival of Chávez to the presidency) can be contrasted with the more generic and less overtly political names Día de la Raza ("Day of the Race") and Día de la Hispanidad used in most of Latin America and in Spain, respectively.


Columbus Walk in Caracas, where the statue was knocked down by protesters in 2004.

The name "Day of the Race" originated in 1913 in a publication by the Unión Ibero-Americana in Madrid, with the holiday first being celebrated the following year by the same organization. The governments of Argentina and Spain followed in declaring the day a national holiday in 1917 and 1918, respectively. Implied by the name is the argument that what unites Spain and Latin America is a common racial heritage. For the Mexican ideologue and politician José Vasconcelos Calderón, this common racial heritage was what he called the raza cósmica ("the cosmic race"): a mixture of the "Black, Indian, Mongol, and White" races that resulted from the Spanish colonization of the Americas. According to his famous book of the same title, the "object of the new and old continent is much more important [than the project of English colonization]. Its predestination: to fulfill the mission of becoming the cradle of a fifth race in which all of the world’s peoples will fuse" (Calderón). Though Calderón took many positions on race that we’d now find absurd and offensive, his observations about racial mixing and the resulting cultural syncretism were important contributions to Latin American political thought.

Conversely, the concept of race as a unifying characteristic of Spain and Latin America was rejected by Ramiro de Maeztu, a Spaniard who in 1931 argued that the holiday should be celebrated as "Hispanic Day." According to Maeztu, "[h]ispanics are, then, all of those peoples who owe their civilization or their existence to the Hispanic peoples of the [Iberian] Peninsula. Hispanidad is the concept that includes them all" (Maeztu). Hispanidad, he argues, "is not a race" since "its composed of people of the White, Black, Indian, and Malay races, and their combinations." Maeztu next rejects Hispanic identity being a question of geography, "speaking the same language or of a shared community of origin, nor is it adequately expressed by calling it solidarity." Nevertheless, he believes that though the "spirit of Hispanidad is somewhat weak, it lives on. It manifests itself from time to time through expressions of solidarity and more, of community." It is not until the last paragraph of the text that Maeztu’s tautological definition is finally clarified: the Hispanic community is unified spiritually, by its Catholic heritage, which the author believes should also be the direction of the future (Maeztu).

That religion (a religion) is proposed as the key unifier of the Hispanic world in this foundational document of the holiday strikes me as very clearly problematic, and exclusivist: what about the very real religious diversity of the Latin world?. Still, in function, at least as the holiday is celebrated here in Spain, it is true that Catholicism does play a part in the festivities, such as the Madonna I mentioned in Granada’s parade.

So, it seems to be the case that all of the holiday’s names—Columbus Day, Day of the Race, Hispanic Day—are all beset with ambivalence. Are we celebrating, and do we want to celebrate a man who brought epidemic illness and destruction to a continent, a socially constructed concept that can be linked to many of the great injustices of human history, or a religious tradition that does not fully explain the diversity of Spain and Latin America? It seems that we are left with quite a dilemma, one which seems to me impossible to resolve. In the end, perhaps our best option is just to be aware of the problematic connotations of the holiday, its name, and its history, and to endeavor to approach it critically…while sitting back and enjoying the parade.

Interesting readings to peruse...

Columbus’s journal of his voyages to the Americas, as presented/edited by Bartolomé de las Casas

Columbus’s first letter to Santagruel, announcing the discovery

The complete children’s poem about Columbus

Sources

Calderón, José Vasconcelos. "Prólogo." La Raza Cósmica. Misión de la raza iberoamericana. Notas de viajes a la América del Sur. Barcelona: Agencia Mundial de Librería, ~1926. Proyecto Filosofía en español. 27 October 2005. La Fundación Gustavo Bueno. 13 October 2008
http://www.filosofia.org/aut/001/razacos.htm.

"Columbus Day." Wikipedia. 13 October 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 13 October 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day.

"Día de la Hispanidad." Proyecto Filosofía en español. 27 October 2005. La Fundación Gustavo Bueno. 13 October 2008
http://www.filosofia.org/ave/001/a224.htm.

"Fiesta de la Raza." Proyecto Filosofía en español. 27 October 2005. La Fundación Gustavo Bueno. 13 October 2008
http://www.filosofia.org/ave/001/a220.htm.

"José Vasconcelos Calderón." Proyecto Filosofía en español. 31 March 2008. La Fundación Gustavo Bueno. 13 October 2008
http://www.filosofia.org/ave/001/a225.htm.

"José Vasconcelos Calderón." Wikipedia. 24 September 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 13 October 2008
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Vasconcelos_Calder%C3%B3n.

Maeztu, Ramiro de. "La Hispanidad." Acción Española I.i. Dec. 1913: 8-16. Proyecto Filosofía en español. 8 May 2006. La Fundación Gustavo Bueno. 13 October 2008
http://www.filosofia.org/hem/193/acc/e01008.htm.

Waxing poetic

After the storm passes the silhouettes of palm trees fade into the misty horizon. The chilly water reflects the hazy sunset as one brave bather steps in and slowly sinks into that glowing vastness. As his head goes underwater he disappears completely. This is the vision of my Spain, here in Águilas.

España. I wanted to write about how living here is more of a sensory experience than I have had in the United States, but I can hardly concentrate on writing as I listen to and watch everything that goes on around me. A little boy bangs against a metal see-saw, a group of young Arab boys play fights, an old couple slowly walks by and two ladies in sweat suits jog by. Cars, bicimotos, children, dogs, teenagers, music, birds, whistles, boats, breeze, cries of joy, cries of excitement, skimpy bathing suits, and waves crashing fill my head.

In America, seeing is believing, but here the nose knows. You decide where to eat lunch and where to buy your bread by the smells of the cafés and bakeries. When the scent of the baguettes or the pollo asado or the paella wafts through the air and makes your stomach growl for a pincho of something tasty, you know you’ve hit the jackpot. Meanwhile, a big, shiny donut covered in chocolate from a scentless pastelería turns out stale and too oily. There are bad smells too: the pipes when they get clogged, the sewage in the streets because of the poor drainage system, the cigarette smoke, the exhaust, and the b.o. But you have to take the bad with the good, and happily the good is plenty: churros y chocolate, espresso, flowers whose names I don’t know, that heavy European perfume that hangs in the elevator after women leave for work in the morning, the laundry that hangs out the window, and the tortilla that our neighbor cooks.

But the most prominent smell is the ocean; it’s always there, faintly, behind all the other smells. It’s so subtle that sometimes you hardly notice it until you take a deep breath. But in the morning that smell fills me up. It reminds me that a long time ago doctors used to send their patients to the ocean because of its healing effects. As I walk along the promenade, the sun rising behind the rocky cliffs ahead, the breeze off the sparkling water is thick and salty and reminds me of fishermen. The sea spray wets the sidewalk when the waves crash against the rocks. Every morning when I pass that rocky spot with the sea spray I take a deep breath and smile.