Se me secó el cerebro

Bilingüismo rocks my socks off!

2010-03-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

A study comissioned by the Ministry of Education and the British Council shows that students of Spain's bilingual public schools have better Spanish language skills than their monolingual peers. Yeah! Especially in schools like mine with a high percentage of working class and immigrant kids. Take that all you coffee break cynics who insist it's just too hard for them!

Read the El País article (in Spanish) here.

Careful what you wish for...

2010-03-10T13:04:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, halfway through my second academic year here, I found myself wishing I had made a more romantic choice of living arrangements. The place I had was nice enough. Strategically placed in between work and the places I go for fun. Seemingly nice roommates. Una terraza de puta madre. Yet still when I walked down the street, pretty much all I saw were block after block of boring mid-twentieth century apartment buildings largely filled with disgruntled old rich people. The president of my building's association, for example, was a man who had proudly worked the way to the tops of Franco's air force, and hated our appartment (the only one filled with twenty-something subletters) with a passion. After he abruptly forced us to cancel my birthday party last year, I can't say I was a big fan either. So from time to time I found myself daydreaming about living in Malasaña, La Latina, or Lavapies, one of those neighborhoods filled with young, poor but hopeful people.

Well, I got my wish.... but the road that's taken me to Malasaña has been a little bumpier than I would have liked. After dwelling on the negative for more than a week I'm trying to focus on the good things. Suffice it to say one of the old roomies hiked up the rest of our shares of the rent, a move that hurt me more emotionally than it would have hurt my finances. At any rate I decided to leave, and by great luck in my friend Syreeta's appartment there was a room available that was very fitting for my bohemian fantasies. Maybe too fitting. It's small, about big enough for a dress and a twin bed, which is fine. The killer is there's no window, but it's only for three months, and I will be able to save for the next phase of my life. The current game plan is to leave Madrid in June and backpack around until fall if possible, maybe with some camp-counseling or wwoofing worked in there.

And the location is perfect in all the most impractical ways. The morning commute will be slightly longer but the neighborhood features several of my favorite things: the best pizza in town, the best vegetarian restaurant in town, a store with second-hand books in English, and just that dirty but vibrant charm I love. (Check the neighborhood newspaper which features not one but two articles about graffiti. )

New Year's Eve Inventions and Discoveries

2010-01-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

In roughly chronological order:

-New Tradition: From 11 pm to 12 am on night of New Year's Eve we abandoned use of certain words in order to reflect and remember sufferings of past year. Forbidden words are: "a," "an," "the" and "article". Last word is included because game is too easy if you can easily explain rules. Fun is in challenge.

- New Appetizer combos: Chicken fingers in salsa con queso. Good. Potatoe chip, ranch dip and cherry tomato canape. Better. Champagne with candy cane. Horrible. Just horrible.

- New Bonding Exercise: Land of 1,000 secrets. Step one, each participant builds a separate fort out of blankets and pillows. Step two, serve yourself a drink. Step three, enter your fort with drink and begin confessing. Ali you are a genius.

A Teenybopper Christmas!

2009-12-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

I never knew the true meaning of holiday stress until I became an elementary school teacher. Man, the turkey was nothing in comparison with the Christmas mix CD. Last year my private lesson students and their slightly overbearing mothers showered me with gifts for Christmas, and I hadn't thought to so much as bring some candy to our last class. So this year I wanted to think of some cool but cheap gift for the six tweenage girls I teach when it hit me: The. Jonas. Brothers. What does a twelve year old girl want more than Kevin, Joe and Nick crooning, "All I want for Christmas is the girl of my dreams"? Easy, right? And I would feel no guilt downloading their songs off the internet, because these kids (or their exploitive parents) make ten cents every time one of their adoring fans buy a pocket folder.

But from there, in the true spirit of any holiday project it spiraled quickly out of control. Of course I wanted to maximize the educational value too, so I would need to give them the lyrics. And if I was going to give them the lyrics I would need to make sure they correspond exactly to the version I was giving them and were grammatically correct. No one was "gonna" do anything in my libretto. (Eek! Teaching has also changed me from a descriptivist linguist into a prescreptivist schoolmarm.) And if I'm going to go through all the effort to get the words just right, of course I have to present them in a cute little book. And if I'm going to make a cute little book, I'm going to need craft supplies. And before I knew it quick, easy and cheap, became slow, painstaking and not as cheap. And then there's the fact I don't want to hear another Christmas carol for a year. One of the best parts of Christmas ruined.

Thanksgiving Proselytizing

2009-12-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

I think Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday, and after more or less ignoring it last year this year I went crazy...

Me and my co-auxiliar Darío prepared a fun yet edifying Thanksgiving lesson. After a youtube video of the history of the feast, we had each of the kids write what they were thankful for on the back of a coloring sheet of a piece of fruit. Then each of them came up to the front of the class, shared their thoughts and hung it on a giant construction paper cornucopia. It was fun and really kind of touching. And you know I'm a big sap, but even my tough and serious co-worker Eva was moved. Of course the other teacher I work with was quick to point out the ensuing genocide part, which I had to agree with. But even if the First Thanksgiving is a little legendary, and totally misrepresents greater trend I like the symbolism. So I proudly taught the legend and its values of thankfulness, generosity and tolerance, even knowing that it all went to hell once those pilgrims got the information they needed out of Squanto. After school and three hours of private classes (not only did I have to work I had to work a long day), I crashed Syreeta's program's Thanksgiving potluck empty-handed, called my family, and passed out.

Then Friday and Saturday I scrambled around like a maniac getting ready to roast my first turkey! Friday I found the bird itself an 8 pound little pavita from the Corte Inglés, where I breifly had a panic attack until Molly talked me down. Luckily, Molly had my back on the bird. She had offered to bring stuffing ingredients and help with the prep. Then Saturday I realized I would need a meat thermometer, and ran around looking for that. Serendipitously, I stumbled across a bunch of fresh thyme at a frutería on the way back from buying the thermometer. It was good Molly was helping with prep because my roomies were blissfully unaware of the cultural significance of roasting your first bird and it seemed like they were almost willfully getting in the way. In a kitchen that's barely big enough for two people to work, if they are working together. One roomie was assembling a fish tank and the other making frozen pizza as Molly and I wrestled both physically and emotionally with the raw bird. There was blood and feathers and it was all a bit too much for me. It was quite a comic scene really. We took to referring to the bird as she, and somehow that helped me deal with it. Anyway it turned out great. Just the right number of guests showed up with just the right amount of food and drink and cheer. We feasted and then we zoned out and it was good. One of the Spanish guests was hit with such a Turkey-coma that he was convinced that I had drugged the bird. Eating a Thanksgiving dinner on a Spanish schedule is the perfect recipe for calling it an early night, which we did pretty shortly after the meal.

Finde de Cine

2009-11-06T06:06:00.000-08:00

I have been working too much lately. I found this gig doing 10 (!) hours of conversation classes on occasional Saturdays, which seemed nicer than being overloaded all week long with private lessons, but in the end I don't know. Working 10 hours on Saturday, as I have the past two weekends, pretty much eats up the weekend. And on top of it I was preparing my school's Halloween pageant. But, por fin, I have a whole weekend to myself.

And what a weekend it will be! I'm making up for lost time here. Last night I went to the grand premiere party of a short film Jodienda Warrick, a sort of James Bond parody where drag-queen-spies are competing to either kill or save Madonna, that would have been more funny if I could have understood more of the actors highly stylized accent. You can see other people's pictures of the party if you follow the link.

Me and roomie Alberto waited in line next to nationally famous actor Paco León. Neither me or Al were brave/shameless enough to talk to him, but he was cool. One of his friends was like "Ojalá que no me hagan tacto rectal" that is "I hope they don't give me a prostate exam." To which Paco responded, "Pero qué dices, hombre" or "What are you talking about, man."

It was kind of a symbolic moment for me. Last year the breaking point when I decided to move to the centro, was when I missed the LesGaiCine festival because I lived so far outside the center. This year through Al's connections I not only made it to see part of this festival I made it into the after-party. Symbolism aside though, in the end it makes me realize, even if you make it into the party I'm still the one who has to reach out and connect. I ended up with Al and three of his friends. The four of them had each paired off, and were shouting in each other's ears for ten minutes that seemed like an hour, while I sat there like a bump on a log. It was fine, the night was an over-all success, but it was just a reminder that in the end how many friendships I form here in Madrid, is a function of how much I put myself out there more than anything else.

So this afternoon I am going to put myself out there, and try out for a Voces de Ida y Vuelta, a sort of world music choir with members form all over the world. The idea is that everyone teaches each other songs from their country building up a repertoire of traditional music from all over the world. Sounds awesome and I sorely miss singing with people, I'm not sure if I can make the cut though. Either way it will be low key, apparently my audition is taking place over a couple of beers after their rehearsal, so no worries.

Then tomorrow night I hope to go to the Filmoteca, a sort of government subsidized arthouse cinema to see Tudo isto é fado. I don't know much about it, but it was recommended by a friend and I assume has something to do with fado, that gut-wrenching style of Lisboeta folk music that makes the blues sound like Zippity-doo-dah.

Supposedly I'm also going for a hike in the mountains outside Madrid, and one supposes doing my laundry and grocery shopping. All this will be much more fun but potentially just as much work as ten hours of conversation classes.

Clementine Season!

2009-10-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

If there is one food emblematic of Spain it is jamón ibérico, a kind of cured ham. Spaniards are seriously proud of this stuff, and would take great offense at what I'm about to say: it's o.k. After months of hanging in a musty barn the stuff is imbued with subtle hints of... musty barn. And unless it's the good stuff carefully carved into thin slices by a pro it can be just tough and stringy. When I leave Spain I will miss olives, tortilla, gazpacho, red wine, bread, all of which seem more delicious here. But on a rainy, October day like today, I was in the mood for a more under the radar Spanish classic: puré de verduras, vegetable puree (uy, translation does it no justice). So I went to the Corte Inglés in search of acelgas, white chard I think, and a crucial ingredient in the soup. Now you may balk at the idea of vegetable puree, but let me just say puré is the one form of green vegetable my carnivorous roommate Alberto will eat. It is that good. I polished off two bowls of soup and some crusty bread, followed by my first clementines of the year. Thank god these droplets of Valencian sunshine come into season just as the rains hit. Yum!

Photo Highlights of Morocco and Holy Week

2009-06-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

I tagged along with my co-worker Natasha, the other native speaker at my school, and two of her friends Ashley and Rachel for a weekend in Morocco at the end of March.We had planned on going to Fez but once I saw Chef Chaouen I was sold. The hostal owner talked us into staying two days. Chef Chaouen is an established stop on the dirty hippy backpacker circuit, but for good reason. It is beautiful. All of the buildings are painted white and blue. Plus it is small enough and sincere enough, that you can enjoy the overwhelming generosity of people without fearing much worse than a pushy rug salesman.This is an abandoned mosque on the edge of town. Lower left you see my companions. From the left Ashley, Natasha and Rachel.One of the things that tends to get left out of the whole Muslim-women-head-scarf debate is the fact that many older men still where traditional robes that don't show much more. (And that at least in Tangier many young women where western dress.)The town as seen from the mosque at dusk.Then we went to Tangier, a modern, bustling, diiirty port city, and it was shocking in comparison. I took this picture because I thought the upside down English was funny.But Tangier also had its photogenic side.
The wall of the Casbah, which it turns out just means fortress, and is not necessarily rockin'.

The Bay of Tangier and the port.

Then during Holy Week Johanna and Kelly, my old roomies , came to visit and we headed south for the typical processions in Sevilla. I had this idea that Catholicism had this dichotomy between Carnival and Lent, yet the processions of Sevilla are a solemn Lenten occasion with plenty of party. It can be confusing for an outsider. Once the three of us ended up in this bar packed full of happy drunken people, then suddenly it was empty and everyone was out in the street silently watching a bloody crucifixion pass by. Except for us, we were still in the bar being oblivious and noisy until someone gave us a dirty look.Jesus.The Klan modeled their get up on the penitents in medieval processions, the same costume survives here with its original meaning. It can still be weird for folks from the US though.This one goes out to Lis, and all the other French horn player who had to learn a new instrument for marching band. These bad asses march with French horns.

The whole procession environment ended up being a little intense, and we fled to the beach in Cádiz. It was slightly to cold for the beach, and it was the first times any of us had sun bathed, so we didn't realize we were getting burned. I think on the ensuing train ride to Córdoba we went a little crazy. (Obama advisors note the placement of the accent in Córdoba; he's taking a lot of flack here in Spain for mispronouncing it in the big Cairo speech.)

I enjoy a bocadillo de tortilla y pimiento. Spanish omlette and roasted peppers . Yum. I put this horribly embarassing picture of myself so Kelly and Johanna can't get mad at me for the following:Kelly models salt-water, the best of all hair products. Johanna rocks out on an imaginary bass as part of a game. Kelly shouted a character then took a picture of me or Johanna. I sucked; I always just laughed. Last night in Madrid we went to a tango show at a Café Central.

The return of the Blogger of the Woeful Countenance!

2009-05-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Yes dear readers, I am back on the internet, but are you, my loyal Sancho Panzas, still reading? I hope so...

Today was one those extraodinary days where I got to do several ordinary but pleasant things. Right now I am sitting on the terrace, munching on watermelon and watching the swallows swoop about. Directly across the street is a police station. It's an older, shorter building with a leafy courtyard full of sycamores, and every dusk fifteen or twenty swallows come out to eat. Now I love my work- it is one of the most fulfilling things I have done- but at the end of the day I am socially and intellectually drained. I don't make it to watch the swallows every day, but I should, because watching them fly around as the light gradually changes is the perfect amount of stimulation to keep me entertained as I digest the day. Much better than say watching the news to which many Spanish networks bring the same bloody sensationalism that I imagine defines a bull fight.

I had my last class today with two of my private classes. Almudena organized the groups for her two sons: Aarón, a really bright sixth grader fascinated with language, and David, an equally smart second grader fascinated with wiggling around. Aarón is accompanied by Laura and David by Pablo. Almudena made me croquetas, which the family calls "cocretas," I think it's one of those baby-talk words that stuck. David has a slightly difficult time with his r's. Today he unwittingly produced the archaism "celebro" for "cerebro" included in the quote at the top of the page (fascinating to me at least) and trying to get him to say "crocodile" when the Spanish equivalent is "cocodrillo," was a long hard fight. Almudena let me skip Aarón and Laura's lesson because Laura was sick, and sent me off with some kind words and a full stomach as always. I don't think love is to strong a word for how I feel about Almudena, she mothers me just the right amount without being overbearing.

I seized the extra hour to go to the organic shop I frequent in Chueca aptly named The Organic Shop. The friendly woman who I assume is the proprietress was there. It makes me feel good that she recognizes me now. Then I walked home callejeando through two of my favorite neighborhoods: Chueca and Malasaña. Chueca I've mentioned before, the gentrifying gay ghetto of Madrid. I am not sure if gentrifying is the right word, it's still frequented mainly by gay guys (and some other LGBT folk) but it's more affluent and less marginalized than it used to be (I'm told). COGAM the LGBT collective where I help at an English conversation class, was priced out of the neighborhood, for example. Chueca is fun, but predictably full of shallow scene queens, the achuecados. Okay, I'm judging a library by a handful of books, but they're the books in the special display by the entrance. The bad thing isn't really them but my insecurities that they play on. They make me feel like I need to fill a closet just with underwear that costs twenty euros a piece so that I can carefully co-ordinate my underwear with my pants in order to best marcar paquete. I'll spare you the translation on that.

Malasaña on the other hand is the neighborhood in madrid most like the West Bank in Minneapolis, minus the university and the Somalis though. Greasy hipsters in ironic T's drink in cafés where intellectual conversations alternate with live music. Alberto's friend Iván, an example of an achuecado who has not sold his soul for more underwear, took me to a disco there called Nasti last weekend. I'm pretty sure it's the first place in Madrid where I've heard MGMT, and it is my new favorite disco. It confirms my long held suspicion that I should hang out more in Malasaña, and disproved my assumption that it would be impossible to meet gay guys in Malasaña. There was no romantic connection but I did talk to three or four guys I didn't know, which is more than usually happens in Chueca.

I'm starting to swing back from the assimilation bent I was on at the beginning of my time here. After months of trying to fit in with two Madrid communities, Chueca and the teachers' lounge, at the expense of pretty much everything else, I'm realizing some things are more important than that, and in fact people like me better when I stand up for them. Shit that sounds obvious now that I'm writing it, but it wasn't til Johanna and Kelly came to town that I really got it. I mean of course the teachers like me better when I speak up when they're hating on our Muslim students than when I sit there in indignant silence. Alberto likes it better when I nag him about recycling than when I sit there in indgnant silence. Hmm. Maybe this indignant silence thing is a bad idea.

Of course, I'm over simplifying. It's more of a course correction than an about face. Nor is it a choice between assimilating or being true to yourself, you can integrate yourself without changing too much. In fact, I often had made that argument when defending those Muslim students, but only recently did I begin to really apply it to myself. I guess I'm also realizing how hard I was on myself at first. It's okay to have English speaking friends. It's okay to mildly dislike the famed jamón serrano. And it's definitely okay to spend a weekend night not in Chueca. Not that Chueca is bad, but one night a week is plenty. This Sunday I'm going to check out the workday at a community garden in Malasaña, El Jardin de las Maravillas. If that cruel mistress Chueca doesn't leave me too hung over. Naw, I won't let her, she hates my Hanes.

queda cinco minutos para terminar

2009-04-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'm at the library watching my last five minutes of internet tick down. It seems the cyber-gods do not want me to have internet. If my roommate pays the bill, my charger breaks. If I replace the charger the USB plug in wireless device, breaks. Anyone want to buy me a new Macbook for my birthday? I'll write a blog entry every week. I promise.

So since February... I fell in love with Morocco. I applied for another year in Madrid. College roomies Kelly and Johanna visited for Easter vacation. I did not die, 0nly my internet did.

Feel it with your heart, man.

2009-02-19T16:14:00.001-08:00

So in Science in first grade we are learning the five senses. "We smell with our nose." etc. And Eva was quizzing the kids. She starts with "How do we feel a concert?"

Someone comes up with "We hear it with our ears."

"Good job. You get an M&M."
(I'm not sure how I feel about this, but yes we bribe the kids with candy.)

"Okay, how do we feel El Guernica?"

The textbook answer was, "We see it with our eyes." But sweet little Beti, whose emotional intelligence is higher than her linguistic intelligence, doesn't miss a beat.

"Con el corazón," she says.

With the heart. Eva rolls her eyes, but I am deeply moved, and clutch my hands to my heart in the universal sign for "I am deeply moved. I feel your pain, we are in this together, Beti."

You probably don't want to be my friend once I have kids; there will be lots of stories like this one.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

2009-02-09T13:50:00.001-08:00

Here is my corner of Madrid. It’s a little peninsula of the Argüelles neighborhood that juts down along the west side of Calle de la Princesa from Moncloa to Plaza España. A modern, quiet residential neighborhood populated largely by rich old ladies in fur coats and hipster-yuppies in jazzy tennis shoes.

This is the stained glass I see as I rush down the stairs every morning. I like it; it reminds me of my family’s church in Crystal Lake.

Heading down Martin de los Heros we come to the neighborhood teashop, Lfont Tea Mountain. The proprietor is super friendly, and fills the akward pauses as I waffle about my tea choice with pleasant conversation.

Club Low is the coolest discoteca I’ve been to around these parts.

At the end of Martin de los Heros near Plaza España there are two or three little theaters that play movies in their original languages (most foreign flicks are dubbed here). I went here to see My Name is Harvey Milk two weekends ago. It was pretty great.

Those theaters are in, around and under the Plaza de Cubos, named for these cubes, which also features a VIPs (pronounced “beeps” of course) a Spanish attempt at Shake’n’Steak.

Across the street, behind this sphinx and the overgrown hedge lives the eccentric cradling-robbing Duquesa de Alba. She holds more titles than any other noble in Europe.

Calle de la Princesa. Hotel Melia Madrid is the beacon that guides me home at night.

Don Quijote, Sancho Panza and a man I assume is Cervantes in Plaza España

I think this is the tallest building in the Centro. I forget what it’s called.

A peek of the peak of the Royal Palace from Plaza España.

El Templo de Debod, an Egyptian temple saved piece by piece from the floodwaters of the Aswan High Dam.

The southwest of Madrid as seen from the temple. I used to live out there.
The sidewalk along Parque del Oeste. Prime strolling ground.
Looking west from Parque del Oeste. This place is really nice as the sun goes down. The picture doesn't do it justice.

The Renfe Railroad tracks.

Parque del Oeste is a really nice green space, but not really an escape from the city. There's a big street through the middle complete with buses.

This is el Faro de Moncloa (The Moncloa Light House) built to commemorate the 500th of Columbus's arrival in"the Indies." A light house in a landlocked city is a fitting tribute to such a profoundly lost man.

One of the spire of the Spanish Air Force headquarters.

Entrance to the bus station where I catch the bus to work. Basically the reason I live here.

I tried to furtively take a picture of one of the old ladies in a fur coat and got the sidewalk instead.

The Air Force headquarters from the front. It's right next to the bus station.

The other end of Calle de la Princesa is a shopping district.

"I'm from the tribe of the cute-purses!" Princesa has pricey boutiques...

currently featuring big discounts.

The main building of the Corte Inglés. There are two annexes one for books and music and one for furniture. All in all it sprawls across three blocks.

My metro stop.The mural inside.

The Corte Inglés is the one thing open Sunday afternoons.

Well, Corte Inglés and church.

My bank.
The bread shop I go to. I like it because the proprietress teaches me bread words without making me feel dumb. I go in there and point at a loaf of bread and say, "That one, please," and then she says, "Oh, the gallega, good choice."

The discount grocery store I normally use for most things.

The library. It's small and always packed, but it has a decent selection .

This is the corner nearest my house. There is a lot of road and sidewalk construction in Madrid.

The corner bar I would hang out in if I were a Spanish man age 50-70.

A typical Madrid sidewalk.

Okay I exagerate, but not that much.

better late than never: Granada photos

2009-01-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

So I left my camera in Granada but I just got it back! Granada was kind of one of those everything went wrong kind of trips. Here I am coming to visit Federico García Lorca's birth place when it was closed.

Then I took pictures of the outside of the Alhambra because I didn't know you needed to get tickets in advance.

A street in a market.

Pomegranates galore. Granada is Spanish for pomegranate.

Postmas

2009-01-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas drags on and on here, and if Christmas day itself went pretty well the remaining 11 were kind of lonely. Luckily, my parents arrived on the night of January 5th the same night as the Three Kings, the traditional Spanish gift givers (though Santa is definitely sneaking in on their turf). It was great to see them, but the ensuing seven day whirlwind of tourism was exhausting especially since I was waking up on my parents' midwestern empty-nester schedule and going to bed on my roommate's crazy young madrileño schedule. I saw a lot of stuff I had wanted to see, ate at lots of great restaurants, and above all got to hang out with my folks.

It's good to get back to routine though. I'm starting to feel more connected to Alberto and Greg the new roomies. Last night they bent over backwards to help me finally get wireless on my computer, even after I got really impatient and almost yelled at them and went in my room and closed but at least didn't slam my door. But then it worked and we jumped and yelled and hugged and it was our first real sober bonding experience. I think Alberto and I are doomed to be perpetually slightly confused by the way one another do things, but luckily we both are willing to laugh at it. He will never understand the thrifty homemaker side of me, and I will never understand how he doesn't like vegetables! Ever! At all! Greg is just an incredibly chill, no worries kind of guy but not in an irresponsible kind of way.

It's already time to start thinking about next year too. How did that happen? I'm seriously considering another year here. I really like the work at school and in my private lessons, but it is starting to feel more and more like a real job. Then again the sooner I come back the sooner I have to get a real real job. The other top contender is Teaching Fellows in St. Paul, but I just realized that application is due in a week! yikes! No transcripts or recommendations yet though, so it's doable. Grad school is on the back burner because I missed the deadlines. This experience was partly intended to help me decide if I want to teach or keep studying linguistics, but really I'm still clueless, not that the two things are really mutually exclusive.

Noche Buena y Navidad

2008-12-26T09:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas back in Madrid was not as depressing as I'd thought it would be. Partly because after the marathon of finishing up work at school, getting ready for Christmas, planning Lisbon and then actually travelling there it was good to have some time to chill on my own.

I got back to Madrid late on the 23rd and got some much needed sleep in my own bed. Then the afternoon of Christmas Eve I had to brave the grocery store. The only one that was open was the Corte Ingles, a huge department store cum grocery store that dominates two blocks of my new neighborhood. It was of course frantic as if some strangely decadent doomsday sect was stocking up on bombons and sparkling wine. That's how I felt anyway. Knowing eeeeeverything would be closed the next day I went a little crazy. Of course I need that brie... Oooo look at this giant sack of walnuts. But it wouldn't be Christmas without a little over-consumption.

It seems like Christmas Eve is traditionally the most important time, celebrated with dinner and midnight mass. I ate witha friend of mine from the English group at COGAM, Valdimir, and a couple of his friends. There was an incredible over-abundance of food, which Vladimir tells me is a Russian tradition. It reminded me a little of Christmas with the Polish side of my family where there is always too much food, but not quite that much too much. Maybe it's a Slavic thing. After dinner we skipped the mass in favor of drunken karaoke (is there any other kind?) and tarot card readings (my out look seems good, in case you're wondering).

I woke up late Christmas day. Slowly opened the packages from my family. Talked to them on the phone. Made myself a nice dinner. Watched Snakes on a Plane dubbed in Spanish, and called it an early night. Not the best Christmas ever, but not too shabby either.

Felizes festas em Lisboa!

2008-12-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

I feel like from now on a longer and longer amount of time will pass between blog entries. Maybe I can stem the tide with a New Year's Resolution.

So I was on the point of taking the apartment with the mamaphobe, but I decided to visit two more apartments, and one of them stuck. So since the beginning of December I've been living with an andaluz, Alberto, and a French guy, Greg. Both are really cool. Alberto does computer animation and Greg is doing a professional exchange at a TV station.

Then a couple of weeks ago I went to Granada, with another auxiliar, Molly for a three day weekend. For some reason it didn't occur to us, three day weekend, everyone will be traveling... hmmm... let's make a hostel reservation. so we wandered around aimlessly looking for a place to stay when finally as a last resort we ended up staying with Molly's ex-boyfriend and his family. They are from Brazil, and amazingly welcoming. It wasn't exactly what I expected but I got some awesome Brazilian food out of the deal. I also saw my cousin Jenna who is an auxiliar down there.

Now I'm in Lisbon. Being an absolute tourist. Today I saw o Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, the most beautiful monastery I've ever seen. Okay as far as I know it's only the second monastery I've ever seen after El Escorial, but it was amazing. I arrived alone but have ended doing a lot with another guy from my hostel. Just as I'm missing home most, the travel gods decided to send me a little bit of Chicago in an unexpected way, this guy Lucio, another Brazilian, who is returning home in a roundabout way from a year working in Chicago. And much as when I got back from Chile I wouldn't talk about anything else, he was really excited to talk Chicago. Unfortunately, as soon as I got here the cold I've been holding back for the past couple days hit me, so I've been going at a pretty slow pace, but that's all right. Lisbon is absolutely beautiful. This hostel, Goodnight Backpacker's Hostel, is maybe the friendliest I've ever been in. So even if I don't see everything it's a good change of pace.

i´ll be there for you...

2008-11-24T12:47:00.001-08:00

So after a couple of months living in Carabanchel at José's(for the visual learners: http://maps.google.es/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=110664284521662654017.00045c7584d62b907667d&ie=UTF8&ll=40.411666,-3.750629&spn=0.233697,0.439453&z=11 ), I decided to start looking at apartments again mainly due to logistics. If I want to do something downtown in the afternoon and something downtown at night it is always uncomfortable to try to make it home and back. At least a half hour each way, more if Atletico Madrid has a home soccer game. Two weeks ago after returning late from a day trip to El Escorial I ended up missing a movie I wanted to see at an LGBT film festival, not a huge loss but I'm supposed to be seizing the day over here so I steeled myself to start apartment hunting... again. By moving to the northwest side of Madrid I can get much closer to the centro without getting much farther from school. I´m looking in the area between the Moncloa bus station and the centro.

If my quest were purely logistic, I would probably be done by now, but like many of my generation I am afflicted with Friends syndrome, the irrational belief that I can live cheaply in a spacious appartment in a trendy neighborhood with a group of friends who are like my family while pursuing my dreams as an actor, a hippy, a fashion designer, a chef, an archeologist or... wait what is it that Chandler does?.

Okay it´s mainly the group of friends that's the hang up. If I'm honest with myself a big part of my motivation is the hope that if I move in with a group of 2 or 3 chill madrileños about my age I will instantly have the social life I feel that I am lacking right now. But of course such close knit groups of friends aren't typically looking for a one-year passer through, and that's especially true in Spain where it seems like people usually have the same group of friends from diapers to diapers. So holding out for the right feel, I've now passed on a couple of acceptable offers, and I'm starting to lose energy.

I'm debating taking a place in Chueca, the gay ghetto of Madrid. My roommates would be a Colombian about my age and a middle aged Brasilian. I hate to say it but I'm kind of hung up on national origin, too. I'd like to live with madrileños failing that Spaniards failing that at least native Spanish speakers. Plus, this place is maybe too in the middle of things. Right above a discoteca. And I should worn any female readers who may have wanted to visit, that one bad hetero roommate and his girlfriend ruined it for you all. The Brazilian has banned any overnight visitors with breasts. While I waffle, someone else has probably jumped on it anyway.

Of course during the course of the apartment search, I have started to develop a social life based around COGAM, the LGBT collective. I started out going to an English language learners discussion group and keep getting sucked deeper and deeper in. I now go to a purely social group conducted in Spanish on Saturday night, and next Saturday I will take my first turn of duty in la patrulla condonera, that's right the condom patrol. So maybe I can let go of the Friends fantasy... but just as I prepare to do that I find this article in the good old New York Times about Daniel Vosovic's apartment. The man who lost Project Runway but won our hearts, seems to be living the dream albeit at 5,000 dollars a month: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/realestate/23habi.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

What do you think, do I stick it out for the perfect apartment of hip twenty-somethings or do I go with the mamaphobic Brazilian?

robbed!

2008-10-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

Oops So all of this actually happened like a month ago, but i never posted it. I'll post something new soon, I promise.

Ah so much has happened since I wrote that last post (I didn't publish it right away). Following the ratings-grab method of the evening news I will start with the crime reports and then move on to human interest.

I was robbed for what I'm pretty sure is the first time ever Friday night. Sometime in between buying my third beer and reaching into my pocket to buy my fourth my wallet disappeared. Hmm could the nature of these purchases have contributed to the crime? Luckily I only brought as much cash as I wanted to spend that night. But they got my health insurance card and my monthly metro pass. Being the sentimental sap that I am for me the biggest losses are the wallet itself, my favorite wallet ever made out of an old tie, and the fortune cookie message I mentioned in my first blog entry: "Your dreams will bring you into a profitable venture." Yeah a profit that will be promptly swiped.

The weird thing is Thursday night I had a dream that people were trying to pick pocket me. This group of three guys came up to me and pretended to hit on me as they groped for my pockets. In the dream, however I was aware of what was going on and stopped it. In reality, I was so unaware that I was being robbed that it came as a shock when I found out. That was the worst part I think, how completely unaware I was. I mean I guess that's the way pickpocketing works and all, but it's so unnerving.

The night wasn't a total loss. I might this Chilean guy, a friend of a friend of a friend, who went to the same school I went to when I was in Chile. That was fun.

Friday afternoon I went to Casa de Campo, a park west of Madrid so named because it used to be the king and queen's country home. One thing monarchy's got going for it is that the lavish habits of the royals generate lots of old beautiful buildings and properties. It seems like just about every neighborhood of Madrid has an old palace, many of which are now museums or community centers or parks. It was one of those moments where I let myself switch into full on tourist mode. Nose in a map of the park. Camera out to snap pictures of what to everyone else seems inane. Like the parakeets for example. I must have spent a half an hour trying to get a picture of the docile flock of escaped parakeets. Some nature photographer I am.

Second impressions at school

2008-10-21T13:01:00.001-07:00

Remember back when I said, "I just waltz in there 16 hours a week, who am I to judge?" Well, I should have followed my own advice. After another couple of weeks I'm beginning to have better idea why the teachers act like they do. Much as in most urban school districts in the US, public schools in Madrid are underfunded and understaffed. Anyone who can afford to sends their kids to private school. The conservative madrileño government is steadily cutting back on education funding. If Eva seemed pessimistic and impatient, then it was only because she's had her patience tested to the limit. If it didn't seem like Cristina was putting very much energy in to class, it was because she's overworked.

The cultural differences still get to me sometimes, though. The school system these teachers grew up in was infamously strict. Many things have changed. Teachers are called by their first names, for example. However, the environment is still really different from the elementary school I remember where promoting self-esteem and creativity were top priorities. As Halloween approaches we're doing lot's of bats and ghosts and pumpkins. Bats are black. Ghosts are white. Pumpkins are orange. Any divergence from this may be tolerated but it won't be encouraged. In one class a boy had made a really cool brown and purple bat, but he was sent to his table to recolor the whole thing plane black. This was just a time filler coloring page, too. It's not like the directions said, "Color the bat black." I could understand that. It's just that bats are black. Period.

the catalan question, or what not to say in Madrid

2008-10-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

As you may know I am a hardcore babelist, which is a term I just coined for someone who stubbornly supports the preservation of the world's tenuous linguistic diversity. On the eastern coast of Spain they speak another language Catalan, which the relatively autonomous regional government recognizes as its official language but the federal government does not recognize as a n official language of Spain. I tend to sympathize with the catalinistas, even though the language preservation I support gets tangled in with some closed-minded nationalist bullshit. Okay, thanks for bearing with the abstract intellectual intro, now we can move onto the anecdote...

Last night I was hanging out with Jose, Ismael from school, and some of their friends, and they started digging into Catalunya. If I have been a little too hung up on stereotypes lately, maybe it is because many of the Spaniards I have met like to go on and on about how a certain group is. Los chinos son así. Los marroquís son así. If one of my friends from the US starting going on about, "The Chinese are like this." I would feel compelled to stop him or her and say, "ummm actually Chinese people are a collection of diverse individuals." Here though I'm more inclined to take it with a grain of salt, though it always makes me squirm. But anyway they got going on the Catalans. The Catalans are much more cold and distant than other Spaniards. The Catalans are so closed minded. The Catalans just shoot themselves in the foot by requiring all of the university professors to speak Catalan. Albert Einstein couldn't teach at a Catalan university. I sat on my hands and listened like a good little foreigner trying to learn the lay of the land before he threw himself into a sensitive, controversial topic.

But when me and Jose got home, I couldn't hold myself back. This one of my core beliefs after all, granted one of my most impractical and idealistic core beliefs. Always hedging with "well, I may not really understand the situation but as a linguist," I told him that it might not make sense to him, but given the long term repression of the Catalan language, I can see why they would take radical steps to bolster it now that they have more regional autonomy. There was of course no way I was going to change his mind. He's right there is a lot of political posturing involved and it does mean more qualified professors who only speak Spanish will be turned away. But in my mind it's a kind of linguistic affirmative action, and it's worth the costs.

In other news I officially have lived in Madrid for more than a month. There are still a lot of ups an downs as I continue to adjust. Hell I could stay here ten years and still be adjusting, but it's safe to say it's the end of the beginning and that feels pretty good.

Now I think I'll go try and survive the free afternoon at the Prado. Wish me luck.

okay, now I can relax

2008-10-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article in the magazine section of El País about los frikis, a blanket term for anyone who dresses outside the box, and I find out I´m a gafapasta. "The gafapasta are a friki subtribe known for their intellectual tendencies, their interest in the arts, in addition to using, naturally, their distinctive plastic glasses (gafas de pasta)." Phew, I was starting to get worried, now I can just go around Madrid asking, "Are you a gafapasta?" and in no time I will have found my pretentious thick-glasses brethren.

There is even a wiki-style website devoted to cataloging all the urban tribes:

http://www.frikipedia.es/friki/Gafapasta

estoy malito

2008-10-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

One week working with kids and I´m already sick. Not too sick or anything just a sore throat wanna sleep all day kind of sick. Luckily I have Fridays off work, so I got to sleep all day. I´ve watched the better part of a season of Dos Metros Abajo, i.e. Six Feet Under, and now as promised I´ll do the school spiel.

I work at a small public school in Pozuelo de Alarcón a town just west of Madrid. It used to be a sleepy little pueblo, but has grown a sprawling halo of really rich gated communities, corporate headquarters, and big box stores. I work in the part that used to be the sleepy little pueblo. The student body is probably about half immigrants from Morroco, Romania, Bulgaria and Latin America. There´s this one guy whose parents work for the UN in Sudan, "But for some reason I had to leave, I don´t really understand why." That just about broke my heart.

They are phasing in a bilingual program. Grades 1-4 have English and Science in theory entirely in English. I work mainly with the 1st and 4th grades, plus a couple of classes with the 5th and 6th. The 1st grade teacher, Eva, is a little intense. This is her first year working in the public schools, and with such young kids, and the discipline problems are driving her crazy (me too actually). She´s pretty pesimistic about it all, which makes it a little tough for me, but she´s a good teacher and we get along fine. Cristina teaches 4th grade and she´s maybe a little too laid back. For example, she´ll take five minutes to have a conversation with me about nothing too important while the kids run around the room. But who am I to critcize either of them, I just waltz in there 16 hours a week and after one week I´m sick. It´s challenging but rewarding.

I started giving some private lessons for a a neighborhood association run by a bunch of overbearing mother types. Right now it´s kind of a hassle. I thought we had agreed on the prices, but some of the parents want to bargain more. It´s not strictly about the money, at this point, I just feel like they´re trying to push me around and I don´t like that. I think I´m gonna tell them to take it leave it, if only I knew how to say that.

the metro

2008-10-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

So after meeting up with fellow Macalester alumna Charlotte, I found myself in the metro listening to a musician play the score of Amelie on an acordeon thinking, "How delightfully continental!" (Of course he probably was only playing this because he knew that the foreigners would think "Oh how delightfully continental!" and give him money.) But as I turned the corner on to the platform I found my expat reverie interrupted by a pair of frat boys turned corporate tools. I immediately judged them. The easiest way out of an identity crisis, is to define yourself in opposition to someone else after all. But I checked myself. Had I not just been talking to Charlotte about how I felt judged by madrileños for being a foreigner? How could I be such a hypocrite? So I decided to eavesdrop on them, which was not hard to do. And what were they talking about? One of them was recounting how he had seen a Mexican in a Home Depot back in the states using a funny gesture to ask for a plunger. And the other responded, "that´s weird cuz everyone who works at Home Depot is a Mexican. They shoulda just spoke Spanish." They went on to an enlightening discourse concerning which US celebrities would like to live at each metro stop on a nearby map. Chueca of course would be home to Boy George. So I said fuck it and went back to judging them.

Of course, one of the stereotypes of Gringos that José insists I uphold is a stubborn unwillingness to adapt. Considering that anti-immigrant sentiment is a strong current in Spanish politics I suppose those dudes were doing a better job at assimilation than me. Even things like bike-commuting or making out with boys that I proudly think of as setting me apart from the red-blooded cowboy types, become stereotypically American when I refuse to budge to fit in with Madrid. For example, I keep on talking about buying a bike to get around, and José insists that this would be not only dangerous but worse still culturally inappropriate. No one in Madrid rides bikes, according to him. I mean it´s dangerous and culturally inapporiate back in Crystal Lake, too. But I wonder, when in Rome is it okay to ignore what theRomans do as long as you´re doing out of a desire to promote positive change (oh god, that word just isn´t the same anymore)? How does one assimilate when his fragile little postadolescent identity is so deeply rooted in deliberate defiance of cultural norms? At any rate as long as the metro keeps running and providing interesting anecdotes, I doubt I will buy that bike, but once I get that first pay check of euros burning a whole in my pocket who knows....

(p.s. I have you noticed that my favorite punctuation mark is the ellipsis, although I´m sure any good editor would hate the way I use it.)

(p.p.s. In more mundane news I started working at my school last Wednesday, and I started some private lessons today. Some day I´ll do the rundown of the school and such, but right now I have no desire to do that.)

a travel parable

2008-10-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

I burnt myself today trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich. It seems like it should be simple, but using a baguette instead of a gringo style loaf bread, and a kind of cheese I´m not used to, and olive oil instead of butter, and a stove I´m still not entirely used to, it quickly got complicated. If on the other hand I had tried to make a bocadillo de jamón serrano...

Finde 2: drums in the park and Toledo

2008-09-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is a long one so I divided it into to parts to make it easier to digest:

Part 1, Sunday, El Retiro

"There´s something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone," croons Johnny Cash, and he´s right. Especially if your wandering around aimlessly in a city you´re just getting to know. And it´s that first cloudy, breezy day that let´s you know it´s definitely Fall. And everyone seems to be with someone else except you. And you just missed an appointment to see an apartment that seemed really promising because you hit the snooze too many times.

So I rambled across town to what is at least for the time being my favorite café. It´s called Café Acuarela, and it has this great window that juts out into the street, so that you can people watch shamelessly with a pane of glass to protect you. And it´s just of Plaza de Chueca, "the gay plaza" to put it away I rather wouldn´t, so the people watching is good. Prostitutes with a wide range of gender identities, trendy young couples of various orientations, little old abuelas who have lived in the neighborhood since Franco kept these kind of vices in check but don´t bat an eyelash at the new neighbors. Journaled a little. Read a little. Extremely loud and incredibly close which is phenomenal, and not exactly a pick me up, but kind of is because it makes you feel less lonely because everyone´s at least kinda lonely.

Then I rambled a little farther across town to el Retiro, "the Central Park of Madrid" to put it a way I rather wouldn´t put it. And I´m midway through the gauntlet of dead white guys when I hear the unmistakable sound of a slap on a hand drum in the distance. Suddenly, my aimless wandering has an aim. I make towards the drum as best I can, indulging in the fantasy that it´s a group of Ghanians playing waka even though I know it´s not that likely. There are a lot of West African immigrants in Madrid, though. Finally I come across a lone drummer practicing with headphones. Slightly, disappointed I look for a bench at a safe enough distance that it´s not awkward, and I hear another drum. I follow it to an artificial lake where I find another lone drummer banging away on a djembe-like drum, but I hear another drum and I follow that one. It´s more than one drum! I hear multiple parts fitting together in an intelligible pattern. Hand drums, rattles, stick drums. Following a call and response pattern! I dare to dream that it actually is West African, maybe even Ghanian. Finally, I come across a crowd behind a giant statue of a man in the fetal position. I climb up on top of a little wall-fence thing too see. They´re Colombians actually, but it´s really cool. The dancers are probably even better than the drumming. I watch awhile and leave satisfied. Go home, make some herbal tea, listen to some Johnny cash, write this and now I feel great.

Part 2, Saturday, Toledo

Okay, now rewind to Saturday, me and José go to Toledo and meet some of his friends. They´re married with kids, but lot´s of fun. From the left that´s Manolo, a neighbor, Ismael, the co-worker who hooked me up with José, Manolo´s wife Cristina, me of course, Cristina and Manolo´s daughter Irene, and finally Ismael´s wife Ruth with their son Miguel. I can´t say exactly why, but I really like Ruth a lot. She´s eager to make conversation and patient with my Spanish, but it´s more than that. In the background is the cathedral. Having one Spaniard to show you around is perfect, but four is a little overwhelming. One of them would be explaining life under Franco, while one of them would be telling me how Queen Isabela sent Columbus to the new world (the one fact about Spanish history most Americans actually know), and someone else explained the difference between a Gothic and Roman cathedral, and someone else pointing out the view of the River Tajo. After a while I think they could tell I had had enough and they all chilled out a bit.

Toledo is magical, and therefore very toursity, but not so touristy that it ceases to be magical. The streets are even smaller than Calle del Codo. Sometimes the houses are built right out over the street forming a sort of archway called a cobertizo. Toledo was the capital until about 1600. It has a Jewish, Muslim, and Christian quarter each very noticeably different. While the Jews and Muslims kept the differences subtle, the Christians went out of the way to plaster huge crucifixes on every building just so it was clear. We´re talking life-sized with Jesus and the whole nine yards.

The irony of the layering of names in a town this old really struck me. One of the synagogues was renamed after the Jews got kicked out: Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca or Saint Mary the White´s Synagogue. Never thought I´d see that. Then another thousand years down the road the tourists brought another layer of culture: a vegetarian restaurant on Calle de la Tripería, roughly Street Where We Sell the Innards of Animals. Yum. This one-time vegetarian went ahead and tried the blood sausage. It´s not every day that you get to go back to the Middle Ages.

baffled by the nation-state

2008-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

So me and José got to talking last night about traveling and stereotypes and national identity. He said that he was really surprised when he went to San Francisco, because he expected it to be more like Texas, even though he never had been to Texas. And then he met me and he said he was surprised by how socially conscious I was. I tried to say that if there was any such thing as typically American, neither I nor San Francisco are it, but he said that wasn´t the point, and he´s right. Both me and San Francisco certainly are inextricably American, and I don´t why I was trying to convince José that America sucks and I´m not part of it. Luckily, he was too smart for that. The best part about going abroad is that it reminds me that I do in fact love the U.S. of A., even in the midst of this torturous election year.
Then he asked me what Americans think about Spain. And I didn´t quite know what to say. I told him we don´t think that much about Spain, which I think is fairly true. Then I tried to sum up what I thought about Spain before I came here, but it´s hard to rewind like that. The first thing that came to mind actually was Ernest Hemmingway, bull fighting, basques drinking wine out of goat skin sacks, Carmen, flamenco, La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Don Quijote, chivalry, but also gay marriage and socialism. But I´m curious what other people think. Obviously, you´ve all been prejudiced by reading this, but I´d like to know what you think about when you think about Spain.
I hope that wasn´t too boring. It´s what´s on my mind right now. I´m working on getting more pictures up, but that involves getting my computer connected to the internet which is a little complicated since I don´t have wifi. Those other ones were from José´s camera.

Apartment search

2008-09-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

So I´m watching some nuns on a cooking show on TV and thinking maybe I should just join a convent. Good simple food. Bells telling you when you have to do something. Sounds kind of nice right now. Looking for an appartment is hard. I never really did that before, I always joined the project after that step was already accomplished. Looking for a room in a shared appartment is even harder, but that´s my ideal: an appartment shared with chill Spaniards about my age. Living with José has been a great help, but I think I need to try and find something with people my age. The probem is it seems like most people exactly my age still live with their parents here, but I´ve been finding lots of listings with slightly older twentysomethings. I went to visit the first one last night. It´s a little too expensive but the location is perfect. Close to a bus station that will take me to my school and 2 metro stops away from down town. The people seemed really cool too, really chic young profesionals. Maybe too chic. I didn´t really get the impression they were going to call me back, but we´ll see.

Look I´m a tourist!

2008-09-18T13:45:00.003-07:00

José Antonio took me an a walking tour down town today. First we saw the palace.
Then to the Plaza de la Villa, which was the central plaza of the city when the city was a village, and is home to the narrowest street in Madrid, Calle del Codo. Personally, I would call it an alley, I in fact did call it an alley, but José Antonio insisted it was a street and had the sign to prove it.

Then we went to the Plaza Mayor, the reigning central plaza of Madrid. Much like the streets and elevators and everything else in Madrid, José Antonio is small but cool.

I´d write more but you wouldn´t believe how long it took me to get the format to look like this.

Washingtondcdublinmadrid: or what the hell time is it?

2008-09-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, my stomach just woke me up at 1:30 in the morning (that woud be 6:30 pm in Chicago I think) and said, "That was a nice aternoon nap. Where´s dinner?" However, if I´m ever going to get back on track the most I´m willing to give to my poor beleaguered stomach is a midnight snack and a blog entry.

Yesterday evening I completed the epic mulitstop journey from Chicago to Spain. First, I stopped in D.C. to visit Ross. Higlights include: visiting a hipstery bar in a gentrifying neighborhood, getting proselytized by Evangelicals, trying Yuengling (America´s oldest beer), getting proselytized by Scientologists, and playing kickball on the Mall in sight of the Washington Monument. Plus a lot of hauling my entire life all over the place and clinging nervously to my passport.

Then Sunday evening I got on a redeye to Dublin, and barely slept a wink, but I had an 8 hour layover so of course i had to explore. I Stumbled out of the airport, tried to understand the bus system for a second, and then just gave up, took a deep breath and got on the bus everyone else was getting on. On the way back into the airport, I noticed the friendly person in the clearly marked bus information kiosk, but oh well the blindly following strategy worked and got me downtown where I wanted to be. Highlights include: the really old and beautiful Old Library at Trinity College and a cool little cafe I found with my lonely planet (thanks for the lonely planet, Grace). Then back to the airport for the two hour flight to Spain, at which point too much worrying and coffee and too little food and sleep had turned my stomach into a pit of acid.

But yay! I finally made it to Spain. I´m staying with Jose Antonio, the previously mentioned friend of a co-worker at least for the time being, but it´s looking more and more like I´ll stay here long term. I slept an incredible fourteen hours last night, and then Jose Antonio showed around the neighborhood and the downtown area by car.

Further assurance that I won't be living in a box!

2008-09-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

The secretary at my school says that a friend of his has a room I can stay in at least until I find something better! This makes leaving a lot less scary.

3 reasons why I'm going to Spain...

2008-09-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

3.After four years of too little sleep and too much reading, I'm afraid my brain has dried up on me and I just might be a little crazy.* It's time to stop deconstructing and go off tilting at some windmills! Nothing can get me out of my head like the sheer sensory overload of being in some new far-off place. So here I go: a year of less thinking/reading/writing and more experiencing/doing. Of course, I can't kick the over-analyzing habit cold turkey, so you, my adoring public, will get to read my musings here. yay!

2.Shortly after graduation I received a fortune cookie message that reads: "Your dreams will bring you into a profitable venture." This gives me carte blanche to do whatever the hell I want without fearing the possibility of living in a box.

1. I am the biggest Spanish nerd in the world. I salivate over bizarre archaisms, and yet I have the conversational ability of an 8 year old at best.

*For those of you monolingual gringos who give us all a bad name: This first sentence is a paraphrase of that quote up there and the very nerdy origin of the name of this very cool blog.
(Look at me writing foot notes as I swear off academia, I'm hopeless.)