better late than never: Granada photos

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

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

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!

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...

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!

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

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.