This is possibly one of my favorite spanish expressions ever. Translated literally, it means "I shit on your whore mother!" It's along the lines of a hearty "fuck you" in English. I wish I had learned this expression much sooner so I could use it all the time. All. The. Time.
But when I'm not learning vulgar Spanish phrases I'm visiting, buying, and eating as much of Spain as I can. I am trying to make myself and my bags weigh as much as humanly possible so that I can be charged an obscene amount of money by Iberia Airlines when I return home in, holy crap, one week! The thought of packing makes me a little nauseous, so I'm going to avoid that topic for right now. But yeah. The countdown's at one week. I have now gotten past the denial part, and realize that I will in fact be in the U.S. one week from today. I'm really excited to see everybody and be back in the States, but I'm also pretty sad to be leaving Spain. It'll be interesting to say the least.
OK, something less sad- we went kayaking yesterday!! It was beautiful, we went on this really calm river that cuts through a canyon and has tons of birds (mostly big vultures, but some eagles too), and flowers growing in the cracks in the rocks, and is just breathtaking. Then, once we were all good and exhausted and hungry, we went for a typical program-style lunch with obscene amounts of food. It was so so so so good. So good. Oh god. I love food. Almost as much as I love sleep. And that's saying a lot.
I have my last final tuesday, and after that it's vacation time, although I don't think its possible to take a vacation from a vacation. But dammit I sure am gonna try.
domingo, 1 de junio de 2008
lunes, 26 de mayo de 2008
Finals, Farewells, and... Fun times!!!
I had an exam Monday and another one Tuesday. I am SO GLAD they are over. I always forget how much finals suck until I'm right in the middle of them. So now I only have 1 class left that meets twice a week. My life is difficult. Ha.
Thursday was our cena de despedida (goodbye dinner), and it was so great. Michael, our program director, loves to take us out to nice restaurants and pay for us, which works out pretty great for me, because I like to eat good food (or, lets not lie, pretty much any food). So the whole program was there, all the students, Michael, Pepa 1 (assistant director who actually does everything), the 5 monitores, María Luisa (housing coordinator), and Mario (guide) in this phenomenal restaurant, laughing and eating and toasting and drinking and generally annoying anybody else unfortunate enough to be there that night.
After dinner we all tried to get into this mega-discoteca to celebrate Marissa's birthday (one of the girls on the VWM program). It was pretty disastrous. We talked to a promoter who said he could put us on a list to get in free and when we showed up they said that the name we gave wasn't on their list. Then some girls gave us coupons for the girls to get in free and the bouncers gave us some trouble with those. So basically what happened then was that one of the girls on the program screamed at the bouncers in both Spanish and English, the bouncer called her short and fat (in Spanish) and wouldn't let her in, Pablo told the bouncer that we understood spanish (or at least the monitores did) and not to talk like that, one of the other guys in the program got forcibly removed from the discoteca, blah blah blah blah. Basically the bouncers were huge assholes and even if they had let us in I wouldn't have wanted to go there. So after that people were tired and upset and most of them called it a night. I didn't want to end the night like that, so I went to a bar with the monitores and had a good time.
Saturday I went with Annie and Rachel to Aranjuez, a town outside of Madrid, on the Strawberry Train, this train from i dunno when, maybe the 1920s, where they serve you like 5 strawberries during the hour long ride (I was expecting way more strawberries). Oh yeah, Aranjuez is known for its strawberries and asparagus, hence the strawberry train- the asparagus train just doesn't have the same appeal. It was really pretty and a lot of fun to have a day out exploring with the girls. We continue to be really really inappropriate, and our favorite line of conversation tends to be anything involving Helen Keller, especially jokes and/or impressions. We're really great people.
Today I did nothing. I had no class. It was great!
Thursday was our cena de despedida (goodbye dinner), and it was so great. Michael, our program director, loves to take us out to nice restaurants and pay for us, which works out pretty great for me, because I like to eat good food (or, lets not lie, pretty much any food). So the whole program was there, all the students, Michael, Pepa 1 (assistant director who actually does everything), the 5 monitores, María Luisa (housing coordinator), and Mario (guide) in this phenomenal restaurant, laughing and eating and toasting and drinking and generally annoying anybody else unfortunate enough to be there that night.
After dinner we all tried to get into this mega-discoteca to celebrate Marissa's birthday (one of the girls on the VWM program). It was pretty disastrous. We talked to a promoter who said he could put us on a list to get in free and when we showed up they said that the name we gave wasn't on their list. Then some girls gave us coupons for the girls to get in free and the bouncers gave us some trouble with those. So basically what happened then was that one of the girls on the program screamed at the bouncers in both Spanish and English, the bouncer called her short and fat (in Spanish) and wouldn't let her in, Pablo told the bouncer that we understood spanish (or at least the monitores did) and not to talk like that, one of the other guys in the program got forcibly removed from the discoteca, blah blah blah blah. Basically the bouncers were huge assholes and even if they had let us in I wouldn't have wanted to go there. So after that people were tired and upset and most of them called it a night. I didn't want to end the night like that, so I went to a bar with the monitores and had a good time.
Saturday I went with Annie and Rachel to Aranjuez, a town outside of Madrid, on the Strawberry Train, this train from i dunno when, maybe the 1920s, where they serve you like 5 strawberries during the hour long ride (I was expecting way more strawberries). Oh yeah, Aranjuez is known for its strawberries and asparagus, hence the strawberry train- the asparagus train just doesn't have the same appeal. It was really pretty and a lot of fun to have a day out exploring with the girls. We continue to be really really inappropriate, and our favorite line of conversation tends to be anything involving Helen Keller, especially jokes and/or impressions. We're really great people.
Today I did nothing. I had no class. It was great!
sábado, 17 de mayo de 2008
I can't think of a good title
So it's been another fun and busy week in Madrid. Lots of fun/funny/ridiculous things have happened this week, so i don't even know where to begin. I suppose I'll take up where the last post left off.
Last saturday was a program-sponsored trip to Ávila. Program trips are usually really cool. This one was not. It was rainy and cold and we walked outside a lot. I think our program director wanted to punish us or something. It was bad. I think one of he best parts of that day was getting back to my apartment, changing into dry clothes, and crawling into my warm bed.
So needless to say, after visiting Ávila I was pretty tired. I slept in until 1 or so the next morning and spent some time catching up on american tv shows online. When I emerged from my room around 2:30, I saw that the dining room table was nicely set, but for way more than 3 people. Still in my pajamas, I went to ask Pepita if we were having company for lunch. Oh boy were we having company. 12 people. Her whole family. I ran to take a shower, but wasn't quite fast enough, and met her oldest daughter for the first time while I was still standing in my towel. I think it was a really good way to represent both myself and my country. Once I was actually dressed and not running around like a crazy person, lunch was really great. It was really cool to meet the whole family, and see them all joking and laughing and eating together. It reminded me a lot of my family :) Then after lunch I went with a few people from the program to see an exposition about the sunken treasures of Egypt. It was cool, but a little long.
Monday we didn't have school, so it was automatically a pretty good day. But on top of not having classes, I went with Rachel and Annie to see a musical, Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar. It's about these 2 guys who move to Madrid during the early 80s to form a band and make it big. It's AWESOME. We're all a little obsessed, and may have to go see it again.
Thursday was my last day of CEH classes (the ones with other Americans), so I'm now down to only one class, and I have a final monday and another tuesday. It's going to be so nice to have so much free time for my last 3 weeks. I'll only have to go out to Getafe 2 or 3 times a week now, and i can spend the rest of my time continuing to explore Madrid or revisiting things like the Reina Sofía. Oh, thursday was also San isidro, a holiday in Madrid, so there was lots of cool stuff going on that day and night, including fireworks in Retiro. It was also the birthday of one of the guys on the program, so we had to go out and celebrate all these good things.
So yeah, life's still pretty great, even with finals.
Last saturday was a program-sponsored trip to Ávila. Program trips are usually really cool. This one was not. It was rainy and cold and we walked outside a lot. I think our program director wanted to punish us or something. It was bad. I think one of he best parts of that day was getting back to my apartment, changing into dry clothes, and crawling into my warm bed.
So needless to say, after visiting Ávila I was pretty tired. I slept in until 1 or so the next morning and spent some time catching up on american tv shows online. When I emerged from my room around 2:30, I saw that the dining room table was nicely set, but for way more than 3 people. Still in my pajamas, I went to ask Pepita if we were having company for lunch. Oh boy were we having company. 12 people. Her whole family. I ran to take a shower, but wasn't quite fast enough, and met her oldest daughter for the first time while I was still standing in my towel. I think it was a really good way to represent both myself and my country. Once I was actually dressed and not running around like a crazy person, lunch was really great. It was really cool to meet the whole family, and see them all joking and laughing and eating together. It reminded me a lot of my family :) Then after lunch I went with a few people from the program to see an exposition about the sunken treasures of Egypt. It was cool, but a little long.
Monday we didn't have school, so it was automatically a pretty good day. But on top of not having classes, I went with Rachel and Annie to see a musical, Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar. It's about these 2 guys who move to Madrid during the early 80s to form a band and make it big. It's AWESOME. We're all a little obsessed, and may have to go see it again.
Thursday was my last day of CEH classes (the ones with other Americans), so I'm now down to only one class, and I have a final monday and another tuesday. It's going to be so nice to have so much free time for my last 3 weeks. I'll only have to go out to Getafe 2 or 3 times a week now, and i can spend the rest of my time continuing to explore Madrid or revisiting things like the Reina Sofía. Oh, thursday was also San isidro, a holiday in Madrid, so there was lots of cool stuff going on that day and night, including fireworks in Retiro. It was also the birthday of one of the guys on the program, so we had to go out and celebrate all these good things.
So yeah, life's still pretty great, even with finals.
martes, 6 de mayo de 2008
Return to Andalucía y mucha mierda
Hey friends and family (which, as I recently discovered, also includes my fantastic monitores. Good thing you're all so wonderful and I only have nice things to say about you.)
So I've been slacking off on my blog writing and photo-posting again. But per usual, I think it's for a decently good reason. It involves more traveling!
This past weekend was a 4-day weekend in Madrid, even though I had five days off, and is known here as a puente (bridge). I have no idea why it's called a bridge. But there you have it. So May 1st is May Day/International Workers' Day, May 2 is a holiday in madrid where they celebrate fighting against Napoleon's troops for their independence (they don't really highlight the fact that they lost.), May 3 and 4 were the regular weekend (you know, saturday and sunday), and May 5 was some holiday in Getafe, where my university is, so we didn't have class. It was basically the greatest thing ever.
So with all this free time I went traveling with 3 friends to Sevilla, Tarifa, and Cádiz, all of which are in Andalucía, the southern part of Spain. And by the southern part I mean the warm and sunny part. Yeah buddy. OK so bear with me while I tell you all about my adventures:
April 30: The adventure begins. After having dinner with supermonitoras Bibi & Yoly, as well as Bibi's boyfriend Fredo, Rachel, Pablo, and I made a mad dash to the bus station way the fuck across town to meet Annie to catch an overnight bus to Sevilla. We made it with just a minute or two to spare, and when we went to get on the bus the bus driver at first refused to let me on. Why, you may ask? Because I am a tremendous dumbass and had gotten plantain all over my bus ticket, rendering it both useless and smelly. (As a side note, it may have been banana. I think they use platano here to mean both plantain and banana. Though I could be wrong. It's been known to happen on occasion.) Anyway, after Pablo (monitor/way better spanish speaker than myself/also happens to be my boyfriend) talked to the bus driver, I was allowed on the bus and we were off to Sevilla!
May 1: Bus ride from hell. 6 hours with a 45 minute rest at a rest stop that smelled like shit at some ungodly hour like 2 or 3 AM. We arrived at our hostel in Sevilla around 7, and since our rooms weren't available until 12:30, we slept on couches in the lobby until about 9 or 10, when we were joined by 2 other people from our group, Isaac and Melanie, as well as Melanie's boyfriend. We went out and explored Sevilla for a couple of hours before coming back to the hostel to take a 5 hour "nap." It was a beautiful nap. Maybe as beautiful as Sevilla, which is just amazing. Man do I love sleep. Then Rachel, Annie, Pablo, and I went out for tapas at various restaurants, including one with a very angry bartender lady (bartendress?). There was also a lot of great gazpacho. We went to bed at 10:30 because we were still exhausted.
May 2: More sevilla! It was super pretty. We went on a boat ride down the river. We were supposed to pay attention to the scenery, but instead we all payed attention to these 3 cute little boys who were playing in front of me. I made friends with this little spanish boy named Sergio. If it wasn't completely illegal and a huge hassle, I'd totally take a little kid home to the states with me as a pet. Then we had a picnic in this really pretty park with jenny, a friend of a friend from vassar who's studying in Sevilla for the semester. Then we went back to the hostel to rest for a little and watch some episodes of The Office, the best television show ever, at which point I realized I had turned fairly dark/red in the hot Andalucian sun. Then we went out again for tapas. Tapas are the best.
May 3: Check out of our sweet hostel. I forgot to mention that my first experience in a hostel was actually a really positive one, it was really clean and nice and they had a bar downstairs, a rooftop pool and kitchen, and was generally fantastic. Anyways. So we checked out and caught a bus to Tarifa, one of the southernmost points in Spain. So southern, in fact, that you can see Africa (Morocco) across the water. But don't worry Mom, Dad, and Grandma- I didn't go to Morocco, as much as I really wanted to. We tried to have a picnic on the beach but Tarifa is really, really windy, giving a whole new meaning to the word "sandwich"..... ha. I'm so clever. I went for a quick 4 second swim because the water was really cold, then we went back to our pensión (i have no idea how to translate this... it was a small shitty room with a private bathroom and two sets of bunk beds). We watched more of the office, ate lunch, and napped. We did a lot of eating, napping, and the office watching during the puente. It was great. We went into the old part of Tarifa at night to get dinner and drinks afterwards. The old part is a lot prettier than the part where we were staying, which was pretty much just ugly.
May 4: Check out and walk around Tarifa for a couple hours with our suitcases because we had nowhere to leave them. Nice. Bus ride to Cádiz. Cádiz was beautiful, and had a beach you could be on for more than 5 minutes without being beaten by the sand. We went for a walk after the beach and got lost and ended up taking a solid hour-an- a-half walk. My feet hurt afterwards, but we saw a decent amount of Cádiz. We had great fresh fish for dinner, and also tried caracoles (snails). They are nothing like escargot- they look like snails you would find in your garden (or presumably in the sea, where they actually came from), with the antennae and everything. They didn't really tast like much, but now I can say that i've eaten sea snails. Awesome.
May 5: The adventure back to madrid. First we tried to buy bus tickets for an 8 hour bus ride, but there weren't any available until that night, and we had class the next day. So we went to the train station. There were no seats available on the AVE to Madrid from Cádiz. Go figure. So we had to take a train back to Sevilla to catch the AVE there. 95 euros later I was on my way back to Madrid. Yay.
So yeah. My weekend was an adventure and I loved it. It also killed all my motivation to do anything except lay on a beach and get tan and swim in the ocean. Oh well.
Before I end this horrendously long post, here are some cool things I've learned recently about the Spanish language:
1. Know how you say retirement in spanish? jubilación
2. When you wish someone luck before they act in a play, we say "Break a leg." Spaniards say "¡Mucha mierda!"- "Lots of shit!"
3. We've been learning about love and sex in my colloquial class recently. On tuesday we learned that another word for erection (besides erección) is empalme. That same day when I was looking a map of the metro, I realized Empalme was a stop on line 5. Apparently it also means union. I prefer to think there's a metro stop called Boner.
ok I think thats all. i'm in the process of uploading more pictures, since I just realized I havent done that since semana santa. there's already about 30 up there, probably only about 200 to go...
So I've been slacking off on my blog writing and photo-posting again. But per usual, I think it's for a decently good reason. It involves more traveling!
This past weekend was a 4-day weekend in Madrid, even though I had five days off, and is known here as a puente (bridge). I have no idea why it's called a bridge. But there you have it. So May 1st is May Day/International Workers' Day, May 2 is a holiday in madrid where they celebrate fighting against Napoleon's troops for their independence (they don't really highlight the fact that they lost.), May 3 and 4 were the regular weekend (you know, saturday and sunday), and May 5 was some holiday in Getafe, where my university is, so we didn't have class. It was basically the greatest thing ever.
So with all this free time I went traveling with 3 friends to Sevilla, Tarifa, and Cádiz, all of which are in Andalucía, the southern part of Spain. And by the southern part I mean the warm and sunny part. Yeah buddy. OK so bear with me while I tell you all about my adventures:
April 30: The adventure begins. After having dinner with supermonitoras Bibi & Yoly, as well as Bibi's boyfriend Fredo, Rachel, Pablo, and I made a mad dash to the bus station way the fuck across town to meet Annie to catch an overnight bus to Sevilla. We made it with just a minute or two to spare, and when we went to get on the bus the bus driver at first refused to let me on. Why, you may ask? Because I am a tremendous dumbass and had gotten plantain all over my bus ticket, rendering it both useless and smelly. (As a side note, it may have been banana. I think they use platano here to mean both plantain and banana. Though I could be wrong. It's been known to happen on occasion.) Anyway, after Pablo (monitor/way better spanish speaker than myself/also happens to be my boyfriend) talked to the bus driver, I was allowed on the bus and we were off to Sevilla!
May 1: Bus ride from hell. 6 hours with a 45 minute rest at a rest stop that smelled like shit at some ungodly hour like 2 or 3 AM. We arrived at our hostel in Sevilla around 7, and since our rooms weren't available until 12:30, we slept on couches in the lobby until about 9 or 10, when we were joined by 2 other people from our group, Isaac and Melanie, as well as Melanie's boyfriend. We went out and explored Sevilla for a couple of hours before coming back to the hostel to take a 5 hour "nap." It was a beautiful nap. Maybe as beautiful as Sevilla, which is just amazing. Man do I love sleep. Then Rachel, Annie, Pablo, and I went out for tapas at various restaurants, including one with a very angry bartender lady (bartendress?). There was also a lot of great gazpacho. We went to bed at 10:30 because we were still exhausted.
May 2: More sevilla! It was super pretty. We went on a boat ride down the river. We were supposed to pay attention to the scenery, but instead we all payed attention to these 3 cute little boys who were playing in front of me. I made friends with this little spanish boy named Sergio. If it wasn't completely illegal and a huge hassle, I'd totally take a little kid home to the states with me as a pet. Then we had a picnic in this really pretty park with jenny, a friend of a friend from vassar who's studying in Sevilla for the semester. Then we went back to the hostel to rest for a little and watch some episodes of The Office, the best television show ever, at which point I realized I had turned fairly dark/red in the hot Andalucian sun. Then we went out again for tapas. Tapas are the best.
May 3: Check out of our sweet hostel. I forgot to mention that my first experience in a hostel was actually a really positive one, it was really clean and nice and they had a bar downstairs, a rooftop pool and kitchen, and was generally fantastic. Anyways. So we checked out and caught a bus to Tarifa, one of the southernmost points in Spain. So southern, in fact, that you can see Africa (Morocco) across the water. But don't worry Mom, Dad, and Grandma- I didn't go to Morocco, as much as I really wanted to. We tried to have a picnic on the beach but Tarifa is really, really windy, giving a whole new meaning to the word "sandwich"..... ha. I'm so clever. I went for a quick 4 second swim because the water was really cold, then we went back to our pensión (i have no idea how to translate this... it was a small shitty room with a private bathroom and two sets of bunk beds). We watched more of the office, ate lunch, and napped. We did a lot of eating, napping, and the office watching during the puente. It was great. We went into the old part of Tarifa at night to get dinner and drinks afterwards. The old part is a lot prettier than the part where we were staying, which was pretty much just ugly.
May 4: Check out and walk around Tarifa for a couple hours with our suitcases because we had nowhere to leave them. Nice. Bus ride to Cádiz. Cádiz was beautiful, and had a beach you could be on for more than 5 minutes without being beaten by the sand. We went for a walk after the beach and got lost and ended up taking a solid hour-an- a-half walk. My feet hurt afterwards, but we saw a decent amount of Cádiz. We had great fresh fish for dinner, and also tried caracoles (snails). They are nothing like escargot- they look like snails you would find in your garden (or presumably in the sea, where they actually came from), with the antennae and everything. They didn't really tast like much, but now I can say that i've eaten sea snails. Awesome.
May 5: The adventure back to madrid. First we tried to buy bus tickets for an 8 hour bus ride, but there weren't any available until that night, and we had class the next day. So we went to the train station. There were no seats available on the AVE to Madrid from Cádiz. Go figure. So we had to take a train back to Sevilla to catch the AVE there. 95 euros later I was on my way back to Madrid. Yay.
So yeah. My weekend was an adventure and I loved it. It also killed all my motivation to do anything except lay on a beach and get tan and swim in the ocean. Oh well.
Before I end this horrendously long post, here are some cool things I've learned recently about the Spanish language:
1. Know how you say retirement in spanish? jubilación
2. When you wish someone luck before they act in a play, we say "Break a leg." Spaniards say "¡Mucha mierda!"- "Lots of shit!"
3. We've been learning about love and sex in my colloquial class recently. On tuesday we learned that another word for erection (besides erección) is empalme. That same day when I was looking a map of the metro, I realized Empalme was a stop on line 5. Apparently it also means union. I prefer to think there's a metro stop called Boner.
ok I think thats all. i'm in the process of uploading more pictures, since I just realized I havent done that since semana santa. there's already about 30 up there, probably only about 200 to go...
martes, 22 de abril de 2008
La Rioja, País Vasco, and... lots of work
So this weekend was our program trip to La Rioja and País Vasco, two regions in the north of Spain. I'm sure you're sick and tired of hearing me tell you how beautiful all these places are, but that's really just too damn bad for you. Our first day, after waiting about 4 hours for our bus to come, we headed off on our 3ish hour drive to La Rioja. I forget the name of the first town we stopped in, but we saw this monastery where the first Spanish and basque words were ever written. It was pretty cool from a historical perspective, and also...you guessed it... incredibly beautiful. The north is a lot greener and we were in the mountains where there were sheep grazing on the hills. After that we went to another town in La Rioja whose name I forget, and we walked around before having a phenomenal dinner. One of the great things about these trips is getting to know the monitores who are all so awesome. At the dinner I got to sit near monitora Bibi, who is pretty freaking awesome. After dinner I was competely exhausted, but fortunately we went back to the hotel to sleep. Hallelujah.
The next day started off with a tour of a vineyard at 11 AM & wine tasting at noon. Yes, noon. Even though it was really early to be drinking, that was probably the best glass of wine I've ever had. Oh yeah, the type of wine called "Rioja" happens to come from this region of Spain (La Rioja. Crazy, right?). So it was pretty phenomenal.
After wine tasting, we went to San Sebastián in País Vasco, this awesome town right on the oceanfront. First we had another delicious meal, and then, being the complete nutcase that I am, I made my friends go wade in the ocean with me. It's a miracle that I still have friends. But it was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to actually go swimming in the ocean (on the southern coast, where it will be warmer) in two weeks!
After San Sebastián we went to Bilbao. I went to dinner with Annie, Rachel, our guide Mario, these 2 French girls who are friends of one of the monitores, and the monitores. It was pretty fantastic. Mario, our guide, is a ridiculous human being and started smoking a joint after dinner while we were heading to a bar. The bar was a lot of fun, as things tend to be when the monitores are involved. They're all such fantastic people.
The next day we went to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, which is far and away the craziest looking building I have ever seen. I'll put up pictures soon.
So that's pretty much how my weekend went, and now I'm back in Madrid, waiting for this week to end. All my work seems to have fallen in this one week, so it's only tuesday and I'm already exhausted. But it's ok- I may be exhausted, but I'm exhausted in Spain.
The next day started off with a tour of a vineyard at 11 AM & wine tasting at noon. Yes, noon. Even though it was really early to be drinking, that was probably the best glass of wine I've ever had. Oh yeah, the type of wine called "Rioja" happens to come from this region of Spain (La Rioja. Crazy, right?). So it was pretty phenomenal.
After wine tasting, we went to San Sebastián in País Vasco, this awesome town right on the oceanfront. First we had another delicious meal, and then, being the complete nutcase that I am, I made my friends go wade in the ocean with me. It's a miracle that I still have friends. But it was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to actually go swimming in the ocean (on the southern coast, where it will be warmer) in two weeks!
After San Sebastián we went to Bilbao. I went to dinner with Annie, Rachel, our guide Mario, these 2 French girls who are friends of one of the monitores, and the monitores. It was pretty fantastic. Mario, our guide, is a ridiculous human being and started smoking a joint after dinner while we were heading to a bar. The bar was a lot of fun, as things tend to be when the monitores are involved. They're all such fantastic people.
The next day we went to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, which is far and away the craziest looking building I have ever seen. I'll put up pictures soon.
So that's pretty much how my weekend went, and now I'm back in Madrid, waiting for this week to end. All my work seems to have fallen in this one week, so it's only tuesday and I'm already exhausted. But it's ok- I may be exhausted, but I'm exhausted in Spain.
miércoles, 16 de abril de 2008
I need to do my homework
So instead I'm going to post on my blog. Yeah.
The movie that I saw was really fantastic. It's called The Counterfeiters and it just won the Oscar for best foreign film. It's about the Holocaust, so it's really intense, but it's totally worth the time and money if you get the chance to see it. Also, Spanish movie theaters are different from ones in the US. They're bigger, have assigned seats (like your seat number is on your ticket), and aren't really big on concession stands/snacking during the movie. They are big on dubbing though. It's basically a carry-over from the Franco dictatorship when dubbing was used as a way of censoring foreign films. So I watched an Austrian movie dubbed in Spanish that just won an American award. It was a pretty multi-cultural experience.
We leave Friday morning for País Vasco. I wish we were going now because I just don't want to do my work. It was a beautiful, sunny, 70 degree day, which is the perfect way to kill all motivation, especially when you know that the entire next week is going to be rainy and gray and involve 3 exams and 2 writing assignments. Not that i can complain. I never have any work. It's just unfortunate that it all fell at the same time.
In other news, Spaniards don't really go around the house barefoot. I was walking around the apartment without shoes or socks and Pepita told me I was going to catch a cold. I know I'm not a doctor, nurse, or other qualified medical expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. She and Luis always wear shoes or slippers around the house.
I've been taking a lot of naps recently. Pepita thought I was sick or unhappy. The truth is I just love sleep so much. It's a beautiful thing. I want to import siesta to the US.
The movie that I saw was really fantastic. It's called The Counterfeiters and it just won the Oscar for best foreign film. It's about the Holocaust, so it's really intense, but it's totally worth the time and money if you get the chance to see it. Also, Spanish movie theaters are different from ones in the US. They're bigger, have assigned seats (like your seat number is on your ticket), and aren't really big on concession stands/snacking during the movie. They are big on dubbing though. It's basically a carry-over from the Franco dictatorship when dubbing was used as a way of censoring foreign films. So I watched an Austrian movie dubbed in Spanish that just won an American award. It was a pretty multi-cultural experience.
We leave Friday morning for País Vasco. I wish we were going now because I just don't want to do my work. It was a beautiful, sunny, 70 degree day, which is the perfect way to kill all motivation, especially when you know that the entire next week is going to be rainy and gray and involve 3 exams and 2 writing assignments. Not that i can complain. I never have any work. It's just unfortunate that it all fell at the same time.
In other news, Spaniards don't really go around the house barefoot. I was walking around the apartment without shoes or socks and Pepita told me I was going to catch a cold. I know I'm not a doctor, nurse, or other qualified medical expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. She and Luis always wear shoes or slippers around the house.
I've been taking a lot of naps recently. Pepita thought I was sick or unhappy. The truth is I just love sleep so much. It's a beautiful thing. I want to import siesta to the US.
sábado, 12 de abril de 2008
Christmas in April
And as any self-respecting Jew knows, that only can mean one thing- Chinese food and a movie.
Today Luis went out to the country house that he and Pepita have about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. He happens to hate Chinese food, so that's where Pepita and I went for lunch. I love Pepita. It's nice just getting to talk with her and learning about her family and her life. When the program told me that I'd be living with her, the letter they sent me told me that she was 60 and Luis was 67. After I arrived here, I got the feeling that the ages the program told me were wrong, I just didn't know by how much. So apparently Pepita is going to turn 70 this year and Luis is 75. This makes a lot more sense in Luis' case (missing his bottom teeth, not entirely with it) but I don't think Pepita looks like she's 70. She was very happy I was so shocked. Oh, and the chinese food itself was good too. I haven;t had any while I've been in Spain, and go figure that of all the things that could remind me of home, chinese food would be one of them.
The movie part of my mini-Christmas will be happening in a couple hours, with the key difference being that this movie will be entirely in Spanish. I've been working my way up, first watching Spanish movies with English subtitles, then Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles. Now I'm going to give it a whirl without any subtitles. I will be so happy if I just understand the basic plot details. I'll let you know how it goes.
Classes continue as usual. I started a new class this past week that's supposed to be about Spanish nationalisms, which would be a really fascinating topic. Despite the fact that Spain is one country, it has very distinct regions and languages. In a lot of the country they speak castellano, what we know as Spanish, but in Galicia they speak gallego, in Cataluña they speak Catalan, and in País Vasco (where I'll be traveling to next weekend) they speak Euskera. They also have their own cultural differences, kind of like you find between some regions in the States (like comparing the south to the northeast). It's a really fascinating topic, and the current state of affairs is just a mess, especially with ETA, the radical Basque nationalist terrorist group that wants to keep terrorizing people until Galicia becomes its own separate country. (This should not make you worry. We will be perfectly safe on our trip this coming weekend. The program would in no way jeopardize the well-being of 25 students).
So this is all the stuff I should be learning about. Unfortunately, my professor is a puttering old man who canceled the entire first week of a two-and-a-half week class. So now after finishing week one of our 1.5 week class, we're still only in the mid 1800s. And haven't really discussed nationalisms at all. On top of that, we originally all thought that we had to write a 10-15 page paper in Spanish on some aspect of Spanish nationalisms. But the other day he told us that if we've come to class every day and just want to pass the class without earning an especially high grade, we don;t have to write the paper. Normally I'd be the overachiever that I am and write something to turn in, even if it sucked. But I'm taking this course pass-fail. The grade I get will never show up anywhere, I just have to pass (which I will, since I will have gone to every class). So that just made my life a little less stressful, especially since the week after next I'll either have 2 exams and a paper or 3 exams and a paper. Fun.
I also had a really good conversation with one of the monitores the other day about terrorism (it was really uplifting). I didn't realize that the March 11 bombings in Madrid 4 years ago were also carried out by Al Qaeda, I thought it was ETA. (Though maybe the whole march 11-september 11 connection should have tipped me off...). It was really interesting to talk with a foreigner who has experienced something very similar to 9-11. I'm having a lot of trouble trying to explain the conversation, I guess overall it was sad but comforting in a way to know that we're not the only country that's experienced such a horrible catastrophe.
When I havent been tackling the world's biggest issues, I've been sleeping (I love sleep) and hanging out with my friends. We went to this great vegetarian restaurant yesterday, and even though I'm not a vegetarian, it was just phenomenal. I never knew a meal without meat could be that good. I don't plan on going veg anytime soon (or ever), but I can definitely see the appeal. We also went to this place called the Jardín Secreto (The Secret Garden) for dessert two nights ago. I think it's one of Madrid's best kept secrets (oh god so bad..... you can hate me now). I went with Rachel, Annie, Annie's housemate Stephanie who goes to BU, and Stephanie's friend Rebecca. We split a bunch of the most phenomenal desserts including orgasmo por chocolate- I don't think I need to explain what that means. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time with great food and even better company.
Also, it finally stopped raining for a day. It rained all this past week and it's supposed to start again tomorrow. Thursday or Friday though it's supposed to return to spring weather and sunshine, and I can continue trying to get skin cancer to look more Spanish. Awesome.
Today Luis went out to the country house that he and Pepita have about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. He happens to hate Chinese food, so that's where Pepita and I went for lunch. I love Pepita. It's nice just getting to talk with her and learning about her family and her life. When the program told me that I'd be living with her, the letter they sent me told me that she was 60 and Luis was 67. After I arrived here, I got the feeling that the ages the program told me were wrong, I just didn't know by how much. So apparently Pepita is going to turn 70 this year and Luis is 75. This makes a lot more sense in Luis' case (missing his bottom teeth, not entirely with it) but I don't think Pepita looks like she's 70. She was very happy I was so shocked. Oh, and the chinese food itself was good too. I haven;t had any while I've been in Spain, and go figure that of all the things that could remind me of home, chinese food would be one of them.
The movie part of my mini-Christmas will be happening in a couple hours, with the key difference being that this movie will be entirely in Spanish. I've been working my way up, first watching Spanish movies with English subtitles, then Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles. Now I'm going to give it a whirl without any subtitles. I will be so happy if I just understand the basic plot details. I'll let you know how it goes.
Classes continue as usual. I started a new class this past week that's supposed to be about Spanish nationalisms, which would be a really fascinating topic. Despite the fact that Spain is one country, it has very distinct regions and languages. In a lot of the country they speak castellano, what we know as Spanish, but in Galicia they speak gallego, in Cataluña they speak Catalan, and in País Vasco (where I'll be traveling to next weekend) they speak Euskera. They also have their own cultural differences, kind of like you find between some regions in the States (like comparing the south to the northeast). It's a really fascinating topic, and the current state of affairs is just a mess, especially with ETA, the radical Basque nationalist terrorist group that wants to keep terrorizing people until Galicia becomes its own separate country. (This should not make you worry. We will be perfectly safe on our trip this coming weekend. The program would in no way jeopardize the well-being of 25 students).
So this is all the stuff I should be learning about. Unfortunately, my professor is a puttering old man who canceled the entire first week of a two-and-a-half week class. So now after finishing week one of our 1.5 week class, we're still only in the mid 1800s. And haven't really discussed nationalisms at all. On top of that, we originally all thought that we had to write a 10-15 page paper in Spanish on some aspect of Spanish nationalisms. But the other day he told us that if we've come to class every day and just want to pass the class without earning an especially high grade, we don;t have to write the paper. Normally I'd be the overachiever that I am and write something to turn in, even if it sucked. But I'm taking this course pass-fail. The grade I get will never show up anywhere, I just have to pass (which I will, since I will have gone to every class). So that just made my life a little less stressful, especially since the week after next I'll either have 2 exams and a paper or 3 exams and a paper. Fun.
I also had a really good conversation with one of the monitores the other day about terrorism (it was really uplifting). I didn't realize that the March 11 bombings in Madrid 4 years ago were also carried out by Al Qaeda, I thought it was ETA. (Though maybe the whole march 11-september 11 connection should have tipped me off...). It was really interesting to talk with a foreigner who has experienced something very similar to 9-11. I'm having a lot of trouble trying to explain the conversation, I guess overall it was sad but comforting in a way to know that we're not the only country that's experienced such a horrible catastrophe.
When I havent been tackling the world's biggest issues, I've been sleeping (I love sleep) and hanging out with my friends. We went to this great vegetarian restaurant yesterday, and even though I'm not a vegetarian, it was just phenomenal. I never knew a meal without meat could be that good. I don't plan on going veg anytime soon (or ever), but I can definitely see the appeal. We also went to this place called the Jardín Secreto (The Secret Garden) for dessert two nights ago. I think it's one of Madrid's best kept secrets (oh god so bad..... you can hate me now). I went with Rachel, Annie, Annie's housemate Stephanie who goes to BU, and Stephanie's friend Rebecca. We split a bunch of the most phenomenal desserts including orgasmo por chocolate- I don't think I need to explain what that means. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time with great food and even better company.
Also, it finally stopped raining for a day. It rained all this past week and it's supposed to start again tomorrow. Thursday or Friday though it's supposed to return to spring weather and sunshine, and I can continue trying to get skin cancer to look more Spanish. Awesome.
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