Just to whet your appetite while I prepare my journals on Morocco...
That's me. On a camel. On a beach. In Africa. How amazing!
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
marueccos
Just to whet your appetite while I prepare my journals on Morocco...
That's me. On a camel. On a beach. In Africa. How amazing!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
More of a journal and less of a blog
Extranjero, according to my Microsoft Word translator, is equivalent to the English word foreigner. It also bears a striking resemblance to the adjective extraño, meaning strange or odd (and, as my translator says, extranjero/foreign), and the verb extrañar, meaning to find strange or wonder at. “You don’t belong.”
Living as an extranjero en un país extraño, trying to become less strange and more comfortable, I have an extra sensitivity to this word. Because as long as I’m called extranjero, it means I’m not immersing and my language and appearance and customs are still strange to my surroundings. Immersion is hard to do; I don’t expect to miraculously morph into a happy s-dropping, c-lisping, boot-wearing Andalucían native after only six months. But I can try, at least, to exude more confidence in my speech and my comfort here.
Whether it’s nationalism or just something to talk about, I get a simple reminder almost every day from my señora that I’m still an extranjera. That I don’t exactly belong. The Spanish love their gossip shows, and conveniently every afternoon around lunch time there’s one on. We sit eating and watching the latest news about Spanish stars I’ve never heard of, European royal families, and sometimes more prominent American stars. Whenever, for example, the blonde wife of some Spanish fútbol player appears who’s obviously not Spanish, my señora says “Extranjera. Ella es una extranjera.” I know it’s not an attack against me or my success at immersion or my own birth nation, but it makes me a little mad every time she says it. She can call me her youngest daughter and let me live my life out of her house, but she can’t get past the fact that some people are born Spanish and some just visit. In recent weeks I’ve been replying, “No. No es una extranjera porque es de mi tierra. No es una extranjera para mi.” Maybe it’s different in America, because essentially everyone is an immigrant and an outsider. But I don’t go around labeling people as foreigners, because like the word extranjero for me, it has a slightly bad connotation. But here, where’s the tolerance, why can’t she accept that some people are blond, and some people don’t speak Spanish at all or very well at all. We all live on the same planet, and I came here to see what Spain has to offer me as a citizen of the world. Not as siempre, unavoidably una extranjera.
Living as an extranjero en un país extraño, trying to become less strange and more comfortable, I have an extra sensitivity to this word. Because as long as I’m called extranjero, it means I’m not immersing and my language and appearance and customs are still strange to my surroundings. Immersion is hard to do; I don’t expect to miraculously morph into a happy s-dropping, c-lisping, boot-wearing Andalucían native after only six months. But I can try, at least, to exude more confidence in my speech and my comfort here.
Whether it’s nationalism or just something to talk about, I get a simple reminder almost every day from my señora that I’m still an extranjera. That I don’t exactly belong. The Spanish love their gossip shows, and conveniently every afternoon around lunch time there’s one on. We sit eating and watching the latest news about Spanish stars I’ve never heard of, European royal families, and sometimes more prominent American stars. Whenever, for example, the blonde wife of some Spanish fútbol player appears who’s obviously not Spanish, my señora says “Extranjera. Ella es una extranjera.” I know it’s not an attack against me or my success at immersion or my own birth nation, but it makes me a little mad every time she says it. She can call me her youngest daughter and let me live my life out of her house, but she can’t get past the fact that some people are born Spanish and some just visit. In recent weeks I’ve been replying, “No. No es una extranjera porque es de mi tierra. No es una extranjera para mi.” Maybe it’s different in America, because essentially everyone is an immigrant and an outsider. But I don’t go around labeling people as foreigners, because like the word extranjero for me, it has a slightly bad connotation. But here, where’s the tolerance, why can’t she accept that some people are blond, and some people don’t speak Spanish at all or very well at all. We all live on the same planet, and I came here to see what Spain has to offer me as a citizen of the world. Not as siempre, unavoidably una extranjera.
Nuns don’t say hombre. Hambre.
I signed up to volunteer at a comedor social this week, getting up at 9 on Saturday, but doubting it would really happen as I followed a pencil “x” on my internal map to its supposed location. It was there as promised, the only comedor social in Triana on c/ Pages del Corro, and I was on time. Still doubting it would happen, I walked in and somehow got myself through the front line nun and inside to another nun who, as I expected, didn’t really know what we were supposed to do. No matter, she put us to work sorting, folding, and organizing clothing donations, grateful for our opinions on whether or not certain items were “mono” (literally, monkey, but colloquially, cute or fashionable).
At lunch time we got shepherded to the soup kitchen, which was serving fried fish (the same type my señora feeds me with bones and skin still intact), bean soup, salad, chorizo, bread, and oranges. A far cry from the pig hearts and greasy cream of wheat the San Diego soup kitchen serves, I must say. The building even, which was meticulously clean, decorated with Sevillian white-and-blue tiles, and surprisingly high-security, was much nicer than St. Vincent de Paul. Even though I only helped with the dishes and listened and nodded to a lot of Spanish, it was really quite a brilliant way to spend a Saturday morning. Indeed, people without food from any country look the same, and it seems like the comedor needs the help feeding algunos de los pobres de Sevilla.
Before I lived in a hotel, I used to walk down the tunnel that is c/ Republica Argentina because of metro construction twice a day, sometimes more. Even though Los Remedios is one of the richer areas of town, along this route I would see the same homeless people every day. There’s the man in black with scraggly dirty blond hair who camps out between McDonald’s and Vips with an electric guitar, a big green hulk hand, and two amazingly obedient dogs. Sometimes his friend, a slightly more transient fellow with long black hair and a beard, a hat, and a puffy white jacket, joins him with a couple liters of Cruzcampo. Then there’s the woman who sits right in front of the door of Plus Superdescuento holding a sign written in bad Spanish. There’s a gypsy woman who wears a long black skirt and a black shawl over her head who sits in front of a bank in one of the darker stretches of the tunnel, calling out to people as they walk by to give her money. On good days there are two accordion players, one older man by Aromas Perfumería, and one younger guy with a green jacket who stands by one of the many Telebanco cajeros automaticos. And though I never see him in the morning, this list would not be complete without the skinny, timid Asian man who haunts Plaza de Cuba, Calle Betis, and surrounding areas every night of the week, his hands ironically full of fake flowers and blinking lights.
(Wednesday night addition:)
I was walking along the street today with my cell phone in one hand and my soaked umbrella in the other, lost in thought over whether I should return the call of a Spanish guy in one of my classes and risk todo el mundo and him hearing my awkward phone Spanish, or whether I should tomar un cafelito wait and risk forgetting or losing my nerve. Somewhere in my twilight zone of thought I heard, "Niña, tiene unos centavos" and vaguely saw a woman with a suitcase off to my right. I quietly replied "No," but I guess my face flickered confusion or distaste because she started yelling after me, something about how she wasn't trying to steal anything. Actually, I have no idea what exactly she said, but I got the impression at the time it was something about stealing. I felt really bad after, as I kept walking, snapped out of my deep decision-making. I didn't mean to do whatever it was I did; I wasn't really paying attention and I wasn't prepared to interact with anyone on the street. Only the Spanish boy. Who I forgot to call.
I’m (still) going to Morocco on Thursday (tomorrow).
At lunch time we got shepherded to the soup kitchen, which was serving fried fish (the same type my señora feeds me with bones and skin still intact), bean soup, salad, chorizo, bread, and oranges. A far cry from the pig hearts and greasy cream of wheat the San Diego soup kitchen serves, I must say. The building even, which was meticulously clean, decorated with Sevillian white-and-blue tiles, and surprisingly high-security, was much nicer than St. Vincent de Paul. Even though I only helped with the dishes and listened and nodded to a lot of Spanish, it was really quite a brilliant way to spend a Saturday morning. Indeed, people without food from any country look the same, and it seems like the comedor needs the help feeding algunos de los pobres de Sevilla.
Before I lived in a hotel, I used to walk down the tunnel that is c/ Republica Argentina because of metro construction twice a day, sometimes more. Even though Los Remedios is one of the richer areas of town, along this route I would see the same homeless people every day. There’s the man in black with scraggly dirty blond hair who camps out between McDonald’s and Vips with an electric guitar, a big green hulk hand, and two amazingly obedient dogs. Sometimes his friend, a slightly more transient fellow with long black hair and a beard, a hat, and a puffy white jacket, joins him with a couple liters of Cruzcampo. Then there’s the woman who sits right in front of the door of Plus Superdescuento holding a sign written in bad Spanish. There’s a gypsy woman who wears a long black skirt and a black shawl over her head who sits in front of a bank in one of the darker stretches of the tunnel, calling out to people as they walk by to give her money. On good days there are two accordion players, one older man by Aromas Perfumería, and one younger guy with a green jacket who stands by one of the many Telebanco cajeros automaticos. And though I never see him in the morning, this list would not be complete without the skinny, timid Asian man who haunts Plaza de Cuba, Calle Betis, and surrounding areas every night of the week, his hands ironically full of fake flowers and blinking lights.
(Wednesday night addition:)
I was walking along the street today with my cell phone in one hand and my soaked umbrella in the other, lost in thought over whether I should return the call of a Spanish guy in one of my classes and risk todo el mundo and him hearing my awkward phone Spanish, or whether I should tomar un cafelito wait and risk forgetting or losing my nerve. Somewhere in my twilight zone of thought I heard, "Niña, tiene unos centavos" and vaguely saw a woman with a suitcase off to my right. I quietly replied "No," but I guess my face flickered confusion or distaste because she started yelling after me, something about how she wasn't trying to steal anything. Actually, I have no idea what exactly she said, but I got the impression at the time it was something about stealing. I felt really bad after, as I kept walking, snapped out of my deep decision-making. I didn't mean to do whatever it was I did; I wasn't really paying attention and I wasn't prepared to interact with anyone on the street. Only the Spanish boy. Who I forgot to call.
I’m (still) going to Morocco on Thursday (tomorrow).
The Odd Quintuple
A German, a Colombian, two Americans, and a Guatemalan. In Seville. A fairly uncommon group I’d say, united in a fairly uncommon place, with levels of bi-and tri-linguacy ranging from Latin American Spanish, to almost Andalucía and classroom Spanish (that’s me), to English, and German. Our language in common was, of course, Spanish, with me being at a slight disadvantage because I wasn’t born in Latin America and didn’t spend a year in Ecuador in high school. But no matter; the laughter in some things like running out of gas in the middle of the night and getting caught in a downpour on the wrong side of the street run across languages and cultures, and by the end of the night the five of us were getting along quite well. A whole night of Spanish got me used to some easy phrases and speaking without thinking too much about verb endings, and for the most part being understood. “¡Que suerte!” was the most important phrase, because really, running out of gas in the semi-outskirts of Seville in the middle of the night in a town that doesn’t seem to have many gas stations… and then sputtering up to a Repsol sign 50 km away… is extreme luck. Sin duda. En serio. Buenisimo. The other word that became more cemented was “¡Hombre!”, which, in the words of a hippie at a dirt-lot music festival earlier in the evening, means nothing. Nonetheless, Sevillians, Germans, and our señoras use it often to positively punctuate their sentences and it’s fun to say, hombre.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
first and second impressions
Waiting for class to start. 16.00...16.05...16.10. I was joking with the girl next to me that everything starts late in Spain, even an hour-long class. A person of athority entered the room, said something that I didn't catch, and everyone stood up. In my haste and surprise I asked, "What'd he say?" She answered, "I don't know." She's from Belgium. She speaks Spanish, which was what we were conversing in, Irish, French, and English. She writes notes like a court reporter and is taking all the classes at Universidad de Sevilla that I thought about taking, including the two that i'm currently trying out: Teatro Hispanoamericano y El Relato Hispanoamericano.
Apparently there was some problem (if I understood right) with the heating/cooling in the other room. No one bothered to tell the class that the room changed. I have a friend whose professor hasn't bothered to show up to class for the past two days, but the school claims the class is still going on. Despite these organizational hiccups, Spaniards seem to take their classes as seriously as the desks we sit in. They're horrid enclosed rows of straight-backed wooden fold up chairs and skinny wooden desks that lack the room for anyone to scoot past you. Not to say the classes are horrid. They're very interesting, and the class sits there scribbling furiously and listening completely, not chewing gum or sleeping like the normal American classroom.
The professor's a middle-aged Spanish man with black hair and a goatee. Bueno, he might not actually be Spanish, but Latin American like the subjects he teaches. Yesterday he came to class (ten minutes late, of course) wearing a black suit, a maroon dress shirt, a red belt, carrying a red briefcase. I've noticed that Eurpean men, even professors, have a considerable sense of style. Without talking he pulled a big stack of crisp, white sillabi out of his briefcase and started passing them out. He counted every student in each row to make sure there were enough. I could understand most of what was going on, but the bibliography still boggles my mind because there are about 20 different books on it, a couple of which he highlighted while he was talking. There is one test at the end of the semester that determines my grade. Despite all this, the classes fascinate me, and this semester I actually have the time to enjoy them.
Apparently there was some problem (if I understood right) with the heating/cooling in the other room. No one bothered to tell the class that the room changed. I have a friend whose professor hasn't bothered to show up to class for the past two days, but the school claims the class is still going on. Despite these organizational hiccups, Spaniards seem to take their classes as seriously as the desks we sit in. They're horrid enclosed rows of straight-backed wooden fold up chairs and skinny wooden desks that lack the room for anyone to scoot past you. Not to say the classes are horrid. They're very interesting, and the class sits there scribbling furiously and listening completely, not chewing gum or sleeping like the normal American classroom.
The professor's a middle-aged Spanish man with black hair and a goatee. Bueno, he might not actually be Spanish, but Latin American like the subjects he teaches. Yesterday he came to class (ten minutes late, of course) wearing a black suit, a maroon dress shirt, a red belt, carrying a red briefcase. I've noticed that Eurpean men, even professors, have a considerable sense of style. Without talking he pulled a big stack of crisp, white sillabi out of his briefcase and started passing them out. He counted every student in each row to make sure there were enough. I could understand most of what was going on, but the bibliography still boggles my mind because there are about 20 different books on it, a couple of which he highlighted while he was talking. There is one test at the end of the semester that determines my grade. Despite all this, the classes fascinate me, and this semester I actually have the time to enjoy them.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Hasta pronto
My bathroom: Have you ever seen anything so bizarre in your life?
Me. Duh. I haven't changed that much. I'm standing in the garden of oranges, even though there aren't any oranges. The mosque is to my left.
An extremely non-representative view of this amazing mosque. What makes it so amazing is that it's HUGE, built in about 5 different phases as the population of Cordoba got bigger and bigger. It's particularly unique, aside from its size, because of these double arches that are red and white striped. Also interesting is that when the Catholics came in, they decided to knock down part of the middle of the mosque and build a cross-shaped church. Goodbye red and white, hello marble and wood. It's really interesting, and you're just going to have to go visit because my photos pretty much suck.
The focal point of the mosque. Where the reader stood. It should face Mecca (west?), but instead it faces (south?). It's an anomaly of mosques that they don't really understand.
One of the three remaining synagogues in left standing from the ol' days of the Reyes Catolicos. It was about as big as my room, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
Que bonita.
<3<3<3
¡FELIZ DÍA DE SAN VALENTÍN! (mañana)
Os quiero.
I hope you have an exciting day planned that, if you're lucky, includes dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Spain. :-)
Os quiero.
I hope you have an exciting day planned that, if you're lucky, includes dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Spain. :-)
Friday, February 10, 2006
Seville Adentro
I felt like my head was underwater for most of the day today because I was speaking only mostly in Spanish. I made it until 7:30, just about the time I thought my English personality might come exploding out. It’s not that I’m different when I speak Spanish; but I tend to speak less, because avoiding the headache of not knowing half the vocabulary I want to know is usually worth being silent. I suppose I’ll learn.
Perhaps my Spanish personality is more resilient. (I’m talking as if I have two personalities. I don’t really. My life is not a telenovella.) Today I survived lunch with my señora and her daughter. I survived a five-block walk with the two of them talking a mile a minute. I survived a phone conversation. I survived a visit to the hotel where I now reside. Perhaps I should start at the beginning?
This afternoon I sat down to a brilliant homemade paella and my señora stood over me looking torn, “Tengo algo para decirte.” (I have something to tell you) The bathroom isn’t going to be finished for at least 20 days. I’ll spare you the drama that ensued, but basically she told me she’d go along with whatever I decided, and I decided the hotel paid for by the landlord sounded good. When we looked at the room this afternoon, my señora gawked at the microwave and electric burners in the mini kitchen and the two beds in the same room and decided it would be better if I slept in the hotel alone, made my own breakfast, and returned to the house for lunch and dinner. She, in turn, would sleep at the house and use the bathroom at the hotel when she so desires.
I now have a bathroom. As far as hotels go, it’s not the greatest, but it’s not the worst either. The lamps and the TV don’t work, and the hallways smell like Raid, but the shower was powerful enough to turn the bathroom into a lake this afternoon. I don’t know about staying here for 20+ days, but I suppose if I get too lonely I always have the option of returning to my pail.
As of this morning I am registered in all the classes I want to be registered in, excluding, most notably, the grammar class I was stuck in because I didn’t do so well on the placement test. As it turns out, talking to the right people made all the right things happen. So instead of learning grammar this morning, I lounged on a couch in Café de Indias and read more twentieth century Spanish prose at one time than I’ve ever read in my life.
Yo siempre había esperado en la resurrección de nuestros amores. Era una esperanza indecisa y nostálgica que llenaba mi vida con un aroma de fe: Era la quimera del porvenir, la dulce quimera dormida en el fondo de los lagos azules, donde se reflejan las estrellas del destino. ¡Triste destino el de los dos! Sonata de Otoño Ramón del Valle-Inclán
When I learn something in my translation class I’ll translate it for you.
Perhaps my Spanish personality is more resilient. (I’m talking as if I have two personalities. I don’t really. My life is not a telenovella.) Today I survived lunch with my señora and her daughter. I survived a five-block walk with the two of them talking a mile a minute. I survived a phone conversation. I survived a visit to the hotel where I now reside. Perhaps I should start at the beginning?
This afternoon I sat down to a brilliant homemade paella and my señora stood over me looking torn, “Tengo algo para decirte.” (I have something to tell you) The bathroom isn’t going to be finished for at least 20 days. I’ll spare you the drama that ensued, but basically she told me she’d go along with whatever I decided, and I decided the hotel paid for by the landlord sounded good. When we looked at the room this afternoon, my señora gawked at the microwave and electric burners in the mini kitchen and the two beds in the same room and decided it would be better if I slept in the hotel alone, made my own breakfast, and returned to the house for lunch and dinner. She, in turn, would sleep at the house and use the bathroom at the hotel when she so desires.
I now have a bathroom. As far as hotels go, it’s not the greatest, but it’s not the worst either. The lamps and the TV don’t work, and the hallways smell like Raid, but the shower was powerful enough to turn the bathroom into a lake this afternoon. I don’t know about staying here for 20+ days, but I suppose if I get too lonely I always have the option of returning to my pail.
As of this morning I am registered in all the classes I want to be registered in, excluding, most notably, the grammar class I was stuck in because I didn’t do so well on the placement test. As it turns out, talking to the right people made all the right things happen. So instead of learning grammar this morning, I lounged on a couch in Café de Indias and read more twentieth century Spanish prose at one time than I’ve ever read in my life.
Yo siempre había esperado en la resurrección de nuestros amores. Era una esperanza indecisa y nostálgica que llenaba mi vida con un aroma de fe: Era la quimera del porvenir, la dulce quimera dormida en el fondo de los lagos azules, donde se reflejan las estrellas del destino. ¡Triste destino el de los dos! Sonata de Otoño Ramón del Valle-Inclán
When I learn something in my translation class I’ll translate it for you.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Immersed
I walked like a Spaniard yesterday, click-clacking all over town in the red mini-heels I purchased for my salsa class. They didn’t make me dance better, but they did perhaps give me a little bit more confidence to talk to my partner, who turns out to be very Spanish. Unfortunately all my Spanish walking didn’t make my accent any more Spanish, but at least I could understand most of what my partner was saying about how to hold my arm and where to put my feet. I just smiled a lot because I realized a “¿Como te llamas?” into the conversation that they don’t teach us much small talk in school. Especially not while dancing and comprehending the commands the teacher is yelling out. “Detrás.” “Adelante.” I only have a vague understanding of how these commands would translate in an English salsa class, but I know what to do with my feet when I hear them in Spanish. I guess that’s the best way to learn; without translation.
Again the small talk problem came up when I went on a bathroom run with my señora. The good thing about not having a bathroom is that the using-the-bathroom experience becomes very social. So I come out of the bathroom, and my señora points out to me the son of our downstairs neighbors, and says “Mira, que guapo.” (Look how cute/handsome he is.) And what do I do? Say hola. The universal phrase that means, “I don’t know what to say or how to say it, but hi.” The good news is that I have many more days without a bathroom to practice. Oh wait, is that good news?
Today I decided to speak only in Spanish all day. Even with my American friends. It lasted pretty much from when I woke up til about 1:30, when I was waiting to catch the bus home for lunch and a Texan struck up a conversation with me. Mañana maybe I’ll last all day.
Again the small talk problem came up when I went on a bathroom run with my señora. The good thing about not having a bathroom is that the using-the-bathroom experience becomes very social. So I come out of the bathroom, and my señora points out to me the son of our downstairs neighbors, and says “Mira, que guapo.” (Look how cute/handsome he is.) And what do I do? Say hola. The universal phrase that means, “I don’t know what to say or how to say it, but hi.” The good news is that I have many more days without a bathroom to practice. Oh wait, is that good news?
Today I decided to speak only in Spanish all day. Even with my American friends. It lasted pretty much from when I woke up til about 1:30, when I was waiting to catch the bus home for lunch and a Texan struck up a conversation with me. Mañana maybe I’ll last all day.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Fumar (still) Puede Matar
There was an empty cigarrette carton on the ground in Jerez that said, in english, "Smoking can cause a slow and painful death."
Jerez is for sherry
The sun is setting on my last weekend of freedom. I think I made the most of it.
A group of friends and I decided to take a trip to Jerez de la Frontera, a little pueblo that’s a little over an hour south of Sevilla by train. According to our guidebooks it’s famous for its horses and its sherry, and like most Spanish towns, it has a cathedral and an alcazar (palace). It wasn’t very tourist friendly, so we spent most of Saturday trying to navigate through the winding streets with insufficient maps and lack of sleep. But it was a nice little town for a weekend getaway.
On Saturday the whole town seemed to be gathered in the commercial center of the city. All the shops were open and advertising rebajas like Seville, and there were vendors along the plaza selling veggies, clams, and buckets filled with live snails. Jerez is pretty close to Cadiz, which is right on the Mediterranean Sea, so fish seemed to be more available than in Seville. Right in the center of all this hustle and bustle of weekend shopping was a little stand that sold churros. Two guys working, and a line that was forever long. One of the workers poured the batter in big rings into two pans, while the other cut long strings of the greasy churros and wrapped them in paper for customers. They’re not fluffy, sweet or cinnamony like Disneyland churros, they’re salty and crispy, perfect for dipping in the thick hot chocolate drink for breakfast.
We then went on a tour of the Pedro Domecq bodega, a collection of storehouses for the different wines, sherrys, and brandys they make. The storehouses themselves were amazing; huge, cold, musty buildings filled with row upon row of wooden barrels on their sides and the scent of fermenting grapes. There were at least three levels of barrels, with the youngest wines on the top, and the oldest on the bottom. Every year or so they bottle wine from the bottom barrels and replace it with wine from the newer barrels. The tour itself was interesting, because the tour guide spoke fluent Spanish and very broken English. I was able to understand most of the Spanish, and check the gaps in vocabulary with the English. But as the tour guide was pretty much translating her speech directly from Spanish to broken English, there were gaps in my English understanding as well. Of course, at the end of the tour, we of course got to taste a white sherry, a medium brandy, and sweet mix of all the types of sherry while munching on tapas. I’m not sure if I have yet acquired a taste for exotic fermentations of grapes as I have for various preparations of pig meat, but it was interesting to try.
Nothing is open on Sundays in Spain except a few cafes and bars, and it was cloudy so we decided against visiting the alcazar again to see the camera obscura version of the surrounding countryside. Next to the alcazar, however, was a huge antiques/garage sale that seemed to have attracted the whole city. People were selling the most random items, and it was fun to look around though we stuck out like sore thumbs with our overnight bags on our backs.
It’s funny, even though as a group we can get along quite well in Spanish, people still insist on speaking very slowly and deliberately, and mixing in hand gestures and English words when they can. I guess it doesn’t help that when we walk around, we generally speak in English, but it’s annoying being treated like the foreigner I am even though this is my home until July.
Classes start tomorrow. My month of adjusting and learning grammar is over; it’s time to start with the real stuff.
A group of friends and I decided to take a trip to Jerez de la Frontera, a little pueblo that’s a little over an hour south of Sevilla by train. According to our guidebooks it’s famous for its horses and its sherry, and like most Spanish towns, it has a cathedral and an alcazar (palace). It wasn’t very tourist friendly, so we spent most of Saturday trying to navigate through the winding streets with insufficient maps and lack of sleep. But it was a nice little town for a weekend getaway.
On Saturday the whole town seemed to be gathered in the commercial center of the city. All the shops were open and advertising rebajas like Seville, and there were vendors along the plaza selling veggies, clams, and buckets filled with live snails. Jerez is pretty close to Cadiz, which is right on the Mediterranean Sea, so fish seemed to be more available than in Seville. Right in the center of all this hustle and bustle of weekend shopping was a little stand that sold churros. Two guys working, and a line that was forever long. One of the workers poured the batter in big rings into two pans, while the other cut long strings of the greasy churros and wrapped them in paper for customers. They’re not fluffy, sweet or cinnamony like Disneyland churros, they’re salty and crispy, perfect for dipping in the thick hot chocolate drink for breakfast.
We then went on a tour of the Pedro Domecq bodega, a collection of storehouses for the different wines, sherrys, and brandys they make. The storehouses themselves were amazing; huge, cold, musty buildings filled with row upon row of wooden barrels on their sides and the scent of fermenting grapes. There were at least three levels of barrels, with the youngest wines on the top, and the oldest on the bottom. Every year or so they bottle wine from the bottom barrels and replace it with wine from the newer barrels. The tour itself was interesting, because the tour guide spoke fluent Spanish and very broken English. I was able to understand most of the Spanish, and check the gaps in vocabulary with the English. But as the tour guide was pretty much translating her speech directly from Spanish to broken English, there were gaps in my English understanding as well. Of course, at the end of the tour, we of course got to taste a white sherry, a medium brandy, and sweet mix of all the types of sherry while munching on tapas. I’m not sure if I have yet acquired a taste for exotic fermentations of grapes as I have for various preparations of pig meat, but it was interesting to try.
Nothing is open on Sundays in Spain except a few cafes and bars, and it was cloudy so we decided against visiting the alcazar again to see the camera obscura version of the surrounding countryside. Next to the alcazar, however, was a huge antiques/garage sale that seemed to have attracted the whole city. People were selling the most random items, and it was fun to look around though we stuck out like sore thumbs with our overnight bags on our backs.
It’s funny, even though as a group we can get along quite well in Spanish, people still insist on speaking very slowly and deliberately, and mixing in hand gestures and English words when they can. I guess it doesn’t help that when we walk around, we generally speak in English, but it’s annoying being treated like the foreigner I am even though this is my home until July.
Classes start tomorrow. My month of adjusting and learning grammar is over; it’s time to start with the real stuff.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Blah
I wasn’t joking about the bathroom situation.
I’ve got my day planned out by proximity to public bathrooms, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be able to shower in the morning, after I run, or anywhere near as often as I would like. I gave myself a sponge bath this morning. They say it will only take three days to fix the neighbor’s ceiling so we can have our floor back. But this is Spain. Somehow I’m not so sure.
Bueno. It’s not terrible; I had a nice time at the apartment of my señora’s friend after I showered this afternoon, talking in Spanish with the señoras and in English with her international student. But it’s a little ridiculous, really, that I have to use a bucket or go out somewhere if I want to pee.
I’ve got my day planned out by proximity to public bathrooms, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be able to shower in the morning, after I run, or anywhere near as often as I would like. I gave myself a sponge bath this morning. They say it will only take three days to fix the neighbor’s ceiling so we can have our floor back. But this is Spain. Somehow I’m not so sure.
Bueno. It’s not terrible; I had a nice time at the apartment of my señora’s friend after I showered this afternoon, talking in Spanish with the señoras and in English with her international student. But it’s a little ridiculous, really, that I have to use a bucket or go out somewhere if I want to pee.
Cafe
I met a friend at the “Starbucks of Spain” today, a café called Café de Indias that’s pretty much on every corner. They do have Starbucks here, of course, but Indias is much more Spanish and much cheaper. So this friend is lactose intolerant, as such she can’t drink the classic Spanish drink of café con leche (that is, coffee with milk. I confess I’ve gotten quite attached to it despite my previous rejection of coffee.). So first she asks the waiter if they have soja, soy milk. He had to go ask someone if they had it because he wasn’t quite sure what it was, and he came back saying they only have whole and skim milk. She explains to him her problem. So she orders a plain café, but says she doesn’t want strong coffee like espresso (a cortado), just plain coffee. He brings her an espresso. She says it’s too strong and she asks for hot water, he asks if she wants milk. He brings the hot water. She asks for a larger cup. He asks if she wants milk. In the meantime I’m laughing and laughing because all I got was té negro.
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