language tourists

Defining the title term, that I coined to describe the experiances Ana and I had:
the thrill of finding out the spanish word for sidewalk
oohing at the connection between the pomegranates all over a city and finding out that the name of the city means pomegranate in spanish
straining ears towards tv, movies, and radio eagerly trying to catch what is being said
noticing the different ways things can be said
smiling to yourself when you hear another American on the street or in a store, speaking worse spanish than you
at the end of the say recalling what words you learned in a day
reading a word you're heard used, and having that momement when it all clicks
laughing as you hear american slang making it's way into spanish slang, "no tienes que flipou!"

Spring Break

While technically my spring break was a week ago, today for the first time in months I have been able to really settle in and get busy doing nothing. For the weeks leading up to spring break I found myself traveling every weekend. My reward for staying in Madrid for many cold rainy weekends in the earlier part of my stay was sunny spring scented trips to some beautiful places in Spain. In the past month and a half I have been to places all over Spain and had too many adventures to count. Here's a map of Spain with all the places I have gone within Spain. Save for Toledo Avila and Madrid, I've visited all of them since my last post.

Valencia
The entire time I was in Valencia, I felt like I was in another world. I suppose that the city on an average weekend is nothing like what I experienced there during the festival of Las Fallas, but I do know that the city and the people are crazy during this week long celebration of San Jose, the patron saint of carpenters.
It is difficult to explain what the festival is. I guess historically it began when carpenters burned their shavings once a year in the honor of San Jose. Now, elaborate painted structures of paper machet, wood and plaster are created during the entire year before the celebration. Each of the over 700 structures has a theme of some sort, usually mocking someone or something. We saw some that were huge and elaborate, other's, in the children's division, that were more life sized, and usually conveying playful themes. All had minuet detail and I considered them works of art.
While walking around and viewing these structures during the days, the hardest thing to adjust to was the noise. The entire two days and nights that I was there, 5 minutes did not go by without someone setting off a firework or firecracker. Young children especially contributed to the constancy of this noise, and were far more brave using explosives than I was. Outside a store that sold firecrackers there was a sign stating clearly that fireworks/crackers would not be sold to children under eight! So it went that in every corner of the city that we went to (for the whole city becomes a place to display fallas), that children and adults alike were setting off firecrackers and fireworks of varying intensity.

The there was la crema, the burning, and for that pictures speak louder than words.

It was incredible, but eerie at the same time. Burning faces, people, cars, ideas, crying children, fireworks being shot out of the center of a wooden structure, the spray of the firefighters (bomberos) hoses against the surrounding houses and trees so that they too would not catch on fire. It was unbelievable.

The fireworks of the night before the burning, were the best I have ever seen in my life, despite the fact that I was watching them in the rain at 1:30 in the morning. As I have said, it was quite an experience, and like no other.

Granada
Ana, Rutu and I decided to go to Granada on a whim, the very weekend after Ana and I had become emboldened by our independent and sleepless experience in Valencia. Granada was a lot of fun, there is basically only one main cultural point to visit, and that would be La Alhambra, this old Moorish palace, one of the few that wasn't destroyed when the Christians conquered. Apparently some benevolent king decided that, despite it's construction by Muslims, it was rather pretty. La Alhambra was a series of ornate rooms with intricately carved repetitive designs, and ceramic patterns, combined with sprawling gardens and fountains, and all of it is atop a hill that overlooks the rest of Granada with its small streets and white houses, also of Moorish design.

Our hostel was on a second hilltop facing the Alhambra and we had a small terrace facing in that direction from which we had a beautiful view of the palace and the city. I loved the small winding walking streets that led up to our hostel, and the tiered houses on the hilltop. Also, the morning before we left we climbed further up the hill and we received for our early morning effort, a absolutely gorgeous view. Granada just felt like spring the whole time we were there. Warm days, sun, green green green, flowers, a river through the old part of the city that we were staying in, the beautiful gardens of the palace, it was wonderful.

Cordoba and Seville

Another school trip, but a longer one with two nights in Seville and time to ourselves. This ended up being perfect because Carrie Chandler, a friend of mine from the NMH swim team, is studying in Sevilla, and I got to hang out with her and another former NMH 2003er, Ross Jordan both of the nights that I was there. Seville was beautiful, what I liked best about it was the smell. The whole city smelled of orange blossoms while we were there. It is such an enchanting smell, I can not believe I had never smelled them before.

We stopped in Cordoba to see the famous Mesquita on our first day of our trip. I was very excited to see this, as I had heard a lot about in in several of my classes. La Mesquita is a Mosque that was converted into a church, at least in part. It is this large expansive Mosque, that grew through several different Moorish rulers, as the population demanded. It is this cool dark room with beautiful red and white arches that were made to mimic a forest of trees. The Catholic monarchs, when they conquered (or reconquered) Cordoba couldn't help but seeing the beauty in this building, and they build a church into the middle of it rather than destroying it completely as was customary for that time. It thus is now and odd mix of Muslim and Christian. The most fascinating part to me, is that the Muslims destroyed a catholic church to create this building, but they built a more beautiful and expensive church for them in the corner so they could continue practicing their religion, but now, Muslims have requested to be able to practice in on corner of La mesquita, but as of yet have not been permitted to.

We then traveled on to Seville, where there were so many things to see, and as I have said, to smell. Spring had most definitely sprung in Seville as we walked through beautiful gardens and visited places around the city. The most charming to me would have to be the old Jewish quarter, which was again composed of small streets with white walls but in Seville (and Cordoba) the houses are decadent with flowers. Reds, greens, blues, pinks, and yellows looked so crisp and beautiful against the white background of the walls. The pots were mounted on the walls, put in window sills and sitting around on the grounds. It was hard not to feel happy just walking these beautiful streets.

It was also hard not to be content with my reunion with NMHers. It was so fun and easygoing and we spoke some spaniglish, went out to see flamenco, then dancing and had crazy adventures together. I could not have asked for a better experience with them. It was nice to get and inside scoop on the night life of a place and get the full tour, guided trips to historical and cultural places by day with the school, and visited more recently relevant cultural places and attitudes during the night with my friends.

Semana Santa

The following week was in fact spring break, Semana Santa (holy week) as everyone here calls it, and it always falls exactly on Easter, unlike in the US. I turned in a ten page term paper on Wednesday and Zach came on Friday morning. That week was a blur, and then I spent the first weekend of spring break with Zach in Madrid. I saw things in Madrid I had never seen before, like the royal palace, and generally we did a lot of walking around which is always good. Sunday night we hopped a night train to Barcelona. When I say hopped I mean jumped. We were running late after eating dinner with Maria Emilia, and we had packed our rucksacks in a rush, and ran from the metro and two of the conductors waved frantically at us. The second we stepped on the train it began moving--just like an old movie, sans steam engine smoke.

I will save the rest of my story about Spring Break Traveling with zach for another post, both because this post is getting rather long, and because I have to go to class.

Carnival

Oh dear, I seem to be getting a little behind on my storytelling here. Well let me see . . . nearly two weeks ago it was Carnival in Madrid . . .In the week leading up to carnival, the talk around the computer lab was of masks, costumes, bars, buses, trains, and flights. It seem the more serious college students wanting to ensure an experience of excess to the excess, flew the coop for the weekend to the southern city of Cadiz. There the Carnival festivities allegedly are almost as spectacular as those held in Brazil. Apparently, if you know your Carnivals, Brazil is best of the best.

Back in Madrid the Carnival, or what I saw of it, was lovely. Friday night was quite cold but hardly felt it in the crowded streets of Sol, the heart of Madrid. Not sure of the exact location of commencement ceremonies, Ana and I wandered in search of them, following a performer here, a costumed person there and ultimately following the sounds of drums to a metal elephant on wheels as they made their way to the Plaza where the opening ceremony took place.


A group of drummers and dancers, dressed all in blue and white representing Paraguay were our true pied pipers of the evening. Without them we might never have found the elephant or indeed the ceremony.

The opening ceremony was a lot of smoke and fire, figuratively and literally. The mayor of Madrid was there to give the key to the city to Don Carnal, a master of ceremonies of sorts for the Carnival. It was goofy and excoriated, with him climbing up to a balcony to the mayor, "falling" on the ladder and making jokes the whole way up and down. Once the key was procured, Don Carnal lead a small procession of performers, the elephant and Paraguayan band included to the Plaza Mayor. Again relatively small, but I liked the way it felt intimate and personal. The plaza was full of people, but people were clustered around individual groups of performers. We were able to go up to the Italian fire throwers/breathers afterwards and ask for a picture with them, a man dressed as a pirate and on stilts went into the crowd and asked children for help "pulling" the elephant and picked children up. There were a lot of families around, and tourists to be sure, but it felt like more locals than tourists.

That was just the opening ceremonies, we returned to the center of Madrid the following evening for the parade. It was pouring rain, but a lot of people came out, and it ended up being very worth it. The floats were fun and impressive. In particular the one making fun of Bush, a person playing him stood on a float of a theater--a puppet on strings. Then came the bugs. A group that featured hornets on stilts and beetles on shorter springy stilts, they hoped around and did flips. The bug group also had a large spider balloon that they pulled a person's height above the ground and every so often pushed the legs into the crowd. Soon followed a white ship that floated it's own moon eerily above it. The effect was very pretty, even though I wasn't sure exactly why they were wearing tall white fur hats.

All in all a good time. If carnival is more than those two nights I never saw it. We had heard some crazy things went on in the night life, but as it was so cold and so wet we did not stay out late that night. Following the parade we sought the warmth of a restaurant where we sat for hours drinking coffee and watching costumed people make their way in the street through the rain. I love this picture of the people at the parade, like I am living a movie. This is the life.

Snow

Despite what your ideas of Spain might be, and what mine were, it snowed a whole 4 inches here (a few weeks ago, my posts are still on backorder). Yes admits the palm trees and white washed walls there was snow in Majadahonda. Granted we're a little outside of the city, slightly to the north and in view of the snow-capped mountain range where Madridites go skiing, but still 4 inches of snow, even in Majadahonda, is apparently unheard of. I felt like a little kid when I woke up late looked up at my skylights only to see they were covered with snow. In an instant, my reflexive inner delight took over, it was like waking up to snow at home, thoughts raced fast to the hope of school being canceled, the possibilities of walking and building out in fresh snow. I raced to my skylight and pushed it open, so as to revel at the sight of outside. I heard shouts and looked down to see two boys having a snow fight outside my apartment building.

Instinctively I dressed quickly, donning boots hat and gloves and grabbing my camera. This was an event not to be missed, the reactions of these Spanish suburbites to this bombardment of snow. Here street cleaning is a 24 hour job, it seems like there is no time of day when you can step outside and not see a person in a neon green and yellow jumpsuit cleaning up every butt and piece of gum that has fallen to the sidewalk. It was no surprise then that the people who normally pick up wrappers and leaves were hard at work on a Sunday morning trying to manage this new type of litter. I had laughed to myself earlier in the year when a dusting of snow called for a dumping of salt, so much that the salt on the sidewalk was a much bigger nuisance for much longer than the snow ever would have been. This morning there was not salt in sight, but there were shop owners trying to deal with the snow in any way they could, including sweeping.

There were also, a plethora of children outside. This, as I have said, is a normal Sunday occurrence. Sunday brings out the people, even in colder temperatures; you’re likely to see a lot of people outside on a Sunday. Here too it was the case, but I soon became confused, because there were children in costumes, which is not an average Sunday occurrence. So as I walked further and further down the wide sidewalk street that is the center of the suburb, I couldn’t help noticing more and more children in costumes. I figured it was children dressed up for carnival, I had heard there was activities for the children in Madrid on Sunday, because as it happens this snow event happened the day after the carnival that I just wrote about.

I assumed, wrongly, that the children were on their way to Madrid. Apparently I had underestimated Majadahonda. At the end of the sidewalk street people were gathered with their children, waiting for something, and not far off I heard music playing. My innocent query to see the children in the snow had been answered with a mini parade and the joint joy of seeing the carnival in Majadahonda in the snow. Everyone was in rare mood, for one reason or the other. Children threw snow at their parents, and the parents just smiled and threw snow back (where as parents in climates that receive snow more regularly are less tolerant to such attacks) children all along the street were making snow men, this one using palm leaves for hair. A rare sight indeed.

For icing on the cake, the music drew closer and a parade of jester like carnival characters poured forth onto the street. They became the new target for the snowballs, but like the parents they seemed to be delighted by it rather than upset. It became part of the act. The small parade delighted the children of Majadahonda who had come out in their boots and costumes. And the morning spent with the people and in the snow delighted me. Just being out for an hour in the wet snow my feet got wet and cold. It felt good to return to my warm room and hang up my things wet from the snow. These simple actions and feelings came welcome and familiar. They brought me back across the Atlantic, for a fleeting second or two over the course of this morning; I might have easily been there as here.

Rhythm

My weeks here have now blended into a discernible rhythm. Not everything is so new, and there now is a norm that I can refer back to among the adventures I have here. The Monday through Thursday period is about as mundane as it gets here. My four days of classes are seldom broken up with adventures. Classes still continue to be interesting, but the subject matter is getting more usual for me; I'm not so easily excited about ever Spanish fact I acquire. I sometimes wander around the area around the school after or between my classes, but this usually only amounts to me buying some "fruto secos" which is a phrase that, to the best of my current knowledge, refers to dried fruits, nuts and candy. I'm still clarifying that though. Fruto secos literally means dried fruit, but the people I talk to seem to refer to nuts and candy also as fruto secos. Hrmm. Anyways, as far as I'm concerned it's a food group I can get used to.

Fridays tend to be filled with excursions. If I‚’m not going on a school trip or having a class visit to a museum, I‚’m adventuring with my friends. Mostly the first two, which is great because I get guided visits to all these fascinating places, and the guide, is usually my charismatic funny Spanish teacher, ƒÂ�ngel, who makes everything seem interesting and fun. He tells the most hysterical anecdotes and has a whole series of Spanish(*) mannerisms that are most amusing. (*He tells us they are Spanish hand gestures and the like, but I have yet to see any other Spaniards use them, and I also have him for Spanish class where instead of translating a word using English he acts it out very exaggeratedly so I tend to think they are mostly ƒÂ�nglelisms)

Saturdays are usually spent in similar fashion as Friday, either the return trip from an excursion or a minor excursion in Madrid or Majadahonda something. Majadahonda has a little market on Saturday mornings that is nice. Lovely fruit. Sometimes I go out on a Thursday Friday or Saturday night, usuallyally only one of the three and usually I come back early by Spanish standards, which is to say 1 or 2. I do like to go out at night because it is very much part of the culture, and usually, for me at least, it involves going out and just talking. I‚’m as likely to drink coffee in a bar at 11 at night as I am to have a glass of wine and then just sit back and converse, if I‚’m with Ana, as I am often am, we converse in Spanish and end up making friends with the waiters.

Despite the fun of an adventure and the fabulous picture taking that happens in the earlier part of my weekend, Sundays here are near and dear to my heart. If I go to Madrid it is to go the outdoor market and to walk around. I keep promising to visit museums on Sundays since many of them are free, but I have yet to make it to one. I love the el rastro, the outdoor market. It seems most everything is sold there. There is a plethora of new things such as books, bags, clothes, souvenirs, shoes, DVDs, tools, and everything. Then there is also a section (my favorite) that is old things. There are antique stores who set up outdoor tables and sell their things, and there are piles of old clothes being sold for very cheap. These stalls are set up next to each other and when I was there two ovendorsenders were competing with their prices for used purses. Further on in the used section there are what appear to be only individual household type sales (tag sales), they sell fewer things and of a more unusual assortment.

Last Sunday I explored several of Madrid's many parks. One of the one's I was in was so large and full of plush trees that I nearly forgot
I was in the middle of a bustling city. I felt both deep refreshing solitude and intrinsically connected to the people simply by sharing the same simple pleasure of a walk outside. The sun was shining, everything was green, it was quiet and yet full of life and I had no particular place to be. I just wandered around drinking in nature and relaxing. So nice.

I also love Sundays, el Rastro and the parks for the people, "la gente". Sundays are a day when all the stores are closed and everyone just goes outside. People go for walks with their family, lover, children, dog, alone, whatever. So many people are outside on Sundays, with no apparent place to go, simply being a fuerra (outside) is both the goal and the means of a pleasant afternoon.

PS. Sorry for the gaposis (Harrington-Woodardism) in the posts. What with the past two weeks being midterms, the malfunctioning of picture uploading on blogger and disappearance of my wireless internet in my room, it hasn't happened. but the good news is I'm stored up on stories so I should be posting again soon, knock on wood.

Faces to Names

In the spirit of keeping the promises, some pictures and descriptions of the people I've met here.

The lovely, outgoing, charismatic Deborah. I made fast friends with Deborah, it's hard not to, she loves people. This is her first semester in college, she's doing the two year program here and then she will be studying for two years in Boston (so when she comes to Boston I can show her around, not that she'll need it.) She's from Puerto Rico, but has been in Madrid since new years, and thus is a step or two ahead of the rest of us in her knowledge of the city. Truth is, it's probably less her early arrival and more her ease and self assuredness that navigates us around the city so effortlessly. She does not seem to be either as young as 18 or as new to college as a freshman. She's also my stylist, as if I need one.

Here I am with Sonia, a friend of Deborah's from when they were young, Sonia lives and studies in Madrid now. Sonia is witty and wonderful. The first time I met her I had lunch at her house with her grandparents and the cat meowing constantly for scraps of meat. Oh and she's a vegetarian. Her grandmother seemed to think it was incredible that two vegetarians existed. She helps me understand Spanish, and teaches me "real" Spanish, that fluent speakers actually use in addition to the words in a textbook.












She understands English very well, having studied it for 12 years, but she, like me and Spanish, is timid speaking it. I help her with her pronunciation. We have many funny miscommunications, but we always figure it out, eventually.

Rutu, below, is from Lowell Mass and goes to Suffolk in Boston. Actually, she's from India, she lived there until she was 12. She's fabulous. She out does my easy going nature, so when I hang out with her we always end up doing what I want to do even when I try my hardest to make her decide what we should do, somehow I always manage to show an inkling of what I would like to do and then that's it, she becomes set on it. She's also vegetarian and we've gone out to Indian food restaurants and vegetarian restaurants together. We've also gone shopping together enough that I might admit to her being a shopping buddy if that didn't sound too Beverly hills for me. She's very patient with me as I struggle to compromise a new found love of (I'm embarrassed to admit) shoes and shopping with my still same values (not wanting to buy leather, the guilt of consumerism, and the dislike of buying expensive/new things). There are not many people who would put up with my shopping-induced prolonged indecisiveness, and yet she does. Amazing. She's also invited me to an Indian Wedding, in India in 2008 and I really would love to go!!!













Also pictured Above with Rutu, Ana is the girl with me below. We got to know each other this past weekend during the trip to Toledo. I knew we were on the same wavelength when we were walking around Belmonte, a small castle town at 10 or 11 at night. The other girls we were with, all from the US, were worried about the "sketchiness" of every situacion, approaching each empty, road, old man and dog with paranoia. The trip to the small bowling ally/bar was in their ever repeated opinions, "so scary". Ana and I however, are of the opinion that although caution is required, it is important to get the most you can out of experiences and not prejudge them (and especially the people) before they have even had a chance to finish happening. Most importantly of all, we both firmly believe in meeting people from Spain, in order to better out experience in Spain. She is outgoing, adventuresome and full of life, which gives mean excellent adventure companion.

Best of all, she refuses to speak very much English, so when I am with her I speak a lot of Spanish, and it has been very good for me to practice with someone as understanding as herself. I make a ton of mistakes, but as a student of Spanish herself (for 5 years) rather than a fluent native speaker, she is very understanding of mistakes. (for that matter, so are most people I have met, but I am very embarrassed.) When I am with her I focus more on what I do know how to say and practice explaining ideas using the words I do know and gestures, as my Spanish teacher encourages, rather than being frustrated that I don't know the word that conveys the idea more concisely. It's been very good for me and has helped me build confidence in the understanding I do know, let alone all the words and verb conjugation she teaches me just in daily conversation. I really can't describe how good it has been for me. Maria Emilia noticed the difference right away, I came back from the weekend jabbering excitedly in Spanish, where previously my only Spanish sentences had been timid and calculated, or half in Spanish and half English. I can tell already that Ana and I will be doing many things together while we're here, and we plan on getting together in Boston next year to practice speaking Spanish together.

Speaking of Maria Emilia, I don't have any pictures of her yet. I'm working on it, but it is taking some persuasion, she doesn't like having her picture taken.

gobs of photos!!!

****DISCLAIMER**** I have yet to take any pictures of Madrid. During our school orientation they cautioned so strongly against looking like a tourist, and the risks that come with it that I have been to nervous to take out my camera yet. I am determined that with time and familiarity I will.

So the first place I visited was a town/city called Avila. It is this medieval fortress with this huge wall around it, inside is a town where people still live, with shops and cars and everything, and then also the city that has grown up outside the wall is also called Avila.
This first picture I didn't take (I got here if anyone cares) This is exactly what the wall did look like as we walked up the path to it. But here too I was fighting the tourist stigma, and as I watched a cluster of students all taking pictures of the exact same angle at the same time, I decided to let this one go. I offer it here as a reference point. It might not look like there is a city outside of the wall, but there is, on this side of the wall it was a little bit down the hill.
So then inside, over here on the right, we see that the (early) gothic cathedral that is literally built into the wall, which brings me to the reason for having a fortresses town on the top of the hill. Well during medieval times in the Iberian Peninsula, rather than having an extensive feudal system that you see in other European countries, it was a period called the reconquest. During that period, the christians spent 600 years reconquering the peninsula from the moors (Muslims) that had moved in from northern Africa. As they gained land further and further south they set up castles (and cathedrals) that served as refuge points when the moors tried to reconquer the land they had just held. So needless to say church and state were intrinsically connected, literally as the cathedral in Avila is physically part of the fortress wall. I love the satellite dishes on the roofs.

On the left over here we have a part of the cathedral wall. As I was told, the pinkish parts are the original wall and on the bottom left where it is grey is the current work that is being done to "maintain" it. To my extremely untrained eye the placement of what looks like cement blocks over the beauty of the stone seems clumsy and unfaithful to the nature of the building. But I really don't know what I am talking about so I'm going to stick to saying that I really like the way the stone looks around the windows. (Mom-perhaps Spain is the place to come to get terracotta marble tiles!)

Here you can see a little better the work they have done/ are doing.






On the other side of the wall, no one seems to care that this roof has fallen in.


View from the top of the city beyond the wall. --->

Sadly, Avila is the only real sightseeing I have done. It seems that everyone in my classes have been going to Paris and Morocco on their weekends, and I'm just not there yet, that added to my fear of taking pictures in the city means I have only Avila and Majarahonda, the suburb 20 kilometers outside of Madrid where I live, is all I have to offer you visually.



This billboard reads:
"Welcome to majadahonda, where you live"
Majadahonda is a nice bigish suburb. There are a ton of schools on my street and every morning all the little kids are everywhere. Everyone walks to school together, either parents walk their kids, or older kids walk younger kids or middle aged kids walk together, everyone is usually holding hands, it's adorable. There is also the little local shops that make me smile. There is this little office supply shop right on my street, and the man who runs it knows me by now, and he is so nice. He praises me the more Spanish I use and teases me when I resort to English (of which he knows some) because how do you describe paper clip?

There is also an Estanco, (literally meaning a tobacco shop, but here they are everywhere and where everyone goes to get metro tickets and stamps) where I have been so many time and been so frustrated trying to navigate my way through buying a metro pass (which involves getting a specific ID thing,) and there is one woman there who has been so patient and so kind to me every one of the many times that I went there confused and inarticulate. She and I were both relieved when at last I was able to pick up my pass.

My room, as I have mentioned before, is lovely. In order for you to fully appreciate my lovely little haven . . .




So yeah. I love it. It is so nice and peaceful, and as my roommate decided she wanted to be in the center of Madrid and not in Majadahonda, I now have it all to my self.

So that is pretty much my life. Or at least some of it. I will post some pictures of the people I have met here soon, but the above work of art has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would, and now it's time for class!!! All that info about the moors and the christians isn't coming from nowhere!!

More pictures to come!!

Phew.