this is only a test

This is a test post of sorts to see how picture pasting works. To our left (hopefully), you will see some serene beautifulness from the waterfalls we visited my first week here. ¡Qué tranquilo!

Here we see Statue of Dude Eating Hotdog*. It was done by some artist who was making some sort of commentary on modern society. Said commentary alludes me because we visited this museum at the end of a long morning/afternoon of touring.




*Hot dogs in Spain come in jars full of hot dog water, much like pickles in the States come in jars full of pickle water. ¡Qué delicioso!


That about wraps it up, folks. Judging by my preview window here, I still have some work to do if I wanna make this look at all aesthetically pleasing. If anybody knows the score when it comes to web design, do feel free to chime in.

It´s not supposed to rain in Alicante...

Gonna try to keep this one brief, ´cause I wanna get my night started...

Thanks to those of you posting comments. It´s good to hear what you guys think about the stuff I´m experiencing here. It´s also cool to see how Marliese is holding up in Peru in comparison to how I´m doing here.

Anyhow, this rain crap has to end immediately. Everybody that´s from here says its´s getting pretty ridiculous how much they´ve been getting since (more or less) when my program started...what luck. Also, it´s been snowing in all these parts of Spain where it´s never snowed before in recorded history, including parts of the province of Alicante. Luckily it hasn´t dipped down low enough to snow here in the city, although they´ve said a few times on the news weather that there is a chance of snow this weekend. I thought I got away from the stuff when I left Boston, but apparantly I´m not safe from it´s slippery wrath anywhere. To boot, southern Spaniards have no clue how to drive in the stuff since they´ve hardly ever seen it, so the nightly news has been filling up with reports of horrible accidents with lots of dead women and children. Good grief.

On a side note:
My friend Eric just informed me by way of text message that they make ham flavored Doritos here. Kinda ridiculous- not at all surprising.

Onwards,
I´m getting even more immersed here, as I hung out with Arantxa and her friends at one of their apartments. We made a big lunch together and hung out for the afternoon. It was much fun, and I had a chance to learn a lot of young people slang. Also, they invited me to a giant weekend-long rock festival in Extremadora (countryside of Spain that is at least 15-20 years behind the rest of the country) at the end of March. It´ll be nice to get my camp on while in Spain, especially since it should be real nice out during then. The only thing is that it overlaps with the organized Madrid trip my program is putting on, but I´m thinking rock festival in the sticks chumps organized tour in a city I could easily navigate around myself later on. That weekend also happens to be my birthday, so it´ll be cool to spend it with mis amigos españoles.

Language skills are still moving forward, although there are days where I am really tired and don´t want to have to put in the extra effort just to communicate basic stuff. I suppose I just need to be thinking in Spanish more often, maybe pushing my American friends to speak español with me. This is turning into a point of jealousy for Marliese´s Peruvian adventure. She doesn´t have the option of speaking English to anybody in person so she´ll probably end up picking it up a lot faster than me. Rougher initially I suppose, but she´s gonna be fluent in no time I bet. Still, the homestay and intercambio facets of the program are paying off in a big way for me, so I appreciate those opportunities immensly.

A small thought:
I love how with the Euro, 1 and 2 cent coins have been given a much less prominent role in the currency system. Everything sold here is sold in .05 cent increments so the lowest coin you usually have on you is 5 cent euro. Of course this has downfalls, as things that are sold by measured volume end up coming out to odd amounts, which results in the spare 1 or 2 cent euro coin here and there. Those suck cause you really have no use for them, and end up with a pile of them in your pocket or at home. Plus, the 1 cent euro coin is smaller than an American dime, which makes it easily confusable with other more useful things like... watch batteries....... yea.

And something else I like about Spanish culture:
Yelling! People yell at each other so much here. It was a little off-putting at first because I thought everybody was angry at everybody all the time, but it turns out they yell completely for the hell of it. People can be standing 2 feet away from one another and will be yelling as if they were a quarter of a mile *ahem* kilometer- down the street. It really does liven up conversations and keep all present parties interested whether or not they want to be. It always makes me want to laugh, so I´ve been trying to do it more myself. I look forward to approaching fluency in the language so I can yell more often and with more confidence.

Ok, that´s all I can think of for now, and I want to grab some grub.

love, peace and chicken grease

No me gusta PDA, and other assorted tidbits

I´ve been here for around two weeks now and I´m starting to learn about the things Spanish people go way over the top with. You know, every culture has their obsessions that seem to pervade everyday life to the point where they are taken for granted. Americans, for example, love their big cars and their fast food (to name just a couple). With Spain, there is the excessive use of olive oil and pork in just about everything they eat, banks (there is at least 2 or 3 branches -not just ATMS, but branches- of various banks on every single block in this city), the apparantly indelible mullet, and much to my dismay... PDA.

Now I´ve always been one to denounce Public Displays of Affection in the States (i.e. making out as if nobody were watching at my place of employment), but it´s absolutely ridiculous here. While one can make an argument that there is cultural justification for people to be going at it in public, it´s still rude and nasty in my opinion. As you may or may not be aware, Spaniards do not traditionally have guests in their homes the way Americans do. It is rare for people to invite their friends over to just hang out, and it is unheard of to have a boyfriend/girlfriend over to their parents place unless it is to maybe have lunch with the whole family. Also, the fact that people live with their parents until they are married adds a whole extra twist on the situation. I guess it´s just sort of how things have always been done here, so the result seems to be a bunch of young couples sorely lacking in privacy for more intimate activities. Consequently, you have people ¨being romantic¨ in some rather inappropiate places. Restaurants, bars... the bus on the way to school. Yeah, at 8:30 in the morning apparantly it´s not taboo to suck face on the bumpy ride down the road to the university. If breakfast in Spain wasn´t so meager, I´d probably lose it every time I had to watch this. Anyway, that´s my one major gripe for the week, and it needed to be expressed. Now I´m just worried about what´s going to happen when spring time rolls around *shiver*

Had my first test in Spanish class, and I did really well. I got an 84.5 which translates to an A by our standards (so we´re told). I guess it´s ridiculously difficult to get a 90 or higher, and my teacher said I should be extremely pleased with my grade. We´ve already forged ahead into more difficult subjects, so I doubt future tests will be as easy as this one. I´m getting a little better at speaking day by day, but it can get tiring to constantly have to think in Spanish at home and at school. I´m sure this will intensify once regular classes start and I´m in school for 40+ hours a week. I think it might also be difficult, because I still hang out with Americans and am switching between English and Spanish several times a day.

Tomorrow I´m supposed to meet with Arantxa, my intercambio (see last entry), and her friends for comida. Arantxa speaks pretty good English, although her friends don´t at all, so I´m going to try to only speak Spanish while I´m with them. I think hanging out with people my age will help broaden my vocabulary beyond words used only in the house and in a classroom. Once I feel a little more comfortable speaking, I think it´ll be easier to approach other Spanish people and strike up conversation, even if it´s about really simple stuff. Making friends is definitely going to be harder than I initially expected. I can imagine I come off as dull at times seeing as I still don´t have the words to describe how I feel about most things most of the time. This sometimes results in my sitting there smiling and nodding as other people are talking even though I only have a loose understanding of the subject matter. As a consolation, I´ve noticed my English has gotten ever so slightly worse. Basically I have trouble grabbing for certain less-than-common words -words you might only use once every 2 or 3 days- that normally would roll off my tongue. I think this means my brain is starting to shift more so towards thinking in Spanish, which is my ultimate goal.

Anyhow, went on a hiking trip Saturday. At 6 or 7 miles, it wasn´t the hardest hike ever, but it was definitely more difficult than I was anticipating. My legs are still a little sore from it, so it was welcomed exercise. When we got to the top of the mountain we had an excellent view of the province of Alicante, and the sun was out in full shine which made for a beautiful scene. Also, the people in charge of the trip brought up some tortilla, olives, cheese, pig, wine, dulces and café to enjoy at the summit. Touch of class. Got back early, so I took a long siesta, then went out for the night. Made a new friend in the form of a big smiling Uruguayan tapas bar owner who also happens to be an alcoholic. Apparantly my friends and I made a good impression on him, because he made us help him down half a bottle of whisky with him in 5 minutes, then proceeded to charge us 8 euros for about 6 or 7 other drinks we ordered over the course of the night (or course he was sitting at our table drinking with us the whole time). I wasn´t planning on really imbibing that much Saturday night, but I guess plans change sometimes. The American waitress at another bar right around the corner told us that the Uruguayan was notorious for such antics, and is often quite liberal with the handing out of his alcohol. Anyway, I know where not to go now if I want to have a quiet night, though it´s still nice to have someone new to practice conversational Spanish with. The rest of the night was spent at the puerto, dancing, which was much fun.

Gotta run for now, must do some tarea before dinner. More updates to come.

Just a quickie...

Started my 3-week, 3 hour a day intensive Spanish course on Monday. So far, so good. We are pretty much starting as close to square one as I can comprehend, but it´s already proving to be a lot more useful than I expected. Now that I´m living in a more "Spanish" context, going over the very basics (masculine/feminine, singular/plural type basics) has already proven very useful in ironing out the little grammatical mistakes in my conversational Spanish, making communicating at home better. We are covering a ton of ground each day, however, so I´m sure things will be getting much more difficult very soon.

Met with my intercambio, Arantxa (A-ran-cha... It´s a Basque name) yesterday, and was introduced to some of her friends. My intercambio is a student at the universidad that is studying English. We are given assignments which we need their help to complete, providing us an opportunity to learn more about Spanish life, and also possibly make some new friends. Anyhow, Arantxa and her friends seemed really cool, and they mentioned going out sometime, which would be cool. It´d be nice to start making some Spanish friends for all sorts of reasons.

Saturday, there was a program-sponsored tour of the province. We visited three rather-touristy places outside of the city, which turned out to be really cool. Saw this really deep cave that the Republican forces used to hole up during the Spanish Civil War. A bunch of the stalactites (or is it ´mites?) weren´t at the top because of the Nazi air-strikes. Anyway, it was pretty beautiful in there. They said they hold different sorts of concerts (jazz, classical, gregorian chanting) throughout the year, and the acoustics of the cave give it a natural cathedral-like quality. Me and a group of others agreed it´d be a good idea to rent a car and get out there when that´s going on. After that, we went to this waterfall, woodsy place. Really beautiful green nature stuff in a region of Spain that I assumed was completely arid. Didn´t spend much time there, but got some nice pictures anyway. After that, we went to this castle/house thing, but by then everybody was pretty exhausted. It seemed cool, but I was ready to get back at that point, so probably didn´t appreciate it as much as I could. The castle was on the top of a hill however, and there was an incredible view of the surrounding area. I appreciated that at least. Afterwards, we got on the bus and headed back to the city...

Went out that night, mainly to watch the Patriots and to catch a glimpse of the Alicante nightlife. Never been too huge into watching sports, but it´s nice to do something American in a foreign place. Anyway, there was a bar that was showing the game (at least the first half, since it started at 2AM Spain time), so about 35-40 of us sat out watching it. We convinced them to let us stay past their closing time of 3AM until halftime rolled around at 3:45 or so (very generous as the bar had already been written up a few times by the cops for staying open later than allowed). Afterwards, my friend Eric and I still had some beer energy so we decided to check out the Puerto, aka Club Central. Clubs here stay open til 7 or 8 in the morning (some stay open even later, I´m told, although I have difficulty seeing how that works). Anyway, it was pretty ridiculous, as after all the bars close at 3-4 in the morning, there is this gigantic mass exodus of young people off the streets and onto the port towards what can really only be described as a shopping mall of clubs. We´re talking a massive pillar of people all going to the same place. You´d think there was a parade every Saturday night or something. On the port is literally an outdoor mall-structure with something like 20 to 25 clubs (and a few different fast food joints for drunk munchies) that are all blasting shitty euro-techno. Strangely, Spaniards can´t dance half as good as I assumed all of them could (more stereotyping on my part), although at least they move a little bit more than people do in American clubs. Regardless, it´s a pretty fun(ny) sight to behold. most places didn´t have a cover, but I didn´t stick around for too long as I had been up ass-early in the morning for the day trip. I plan on getting out there again to really dive in and check it out, just for the pure novelty of being able to stay up til 7 in the morning with a huge amount of people.

It must have gotten up to the mid-60s today in the sun, which made for gorgeous walking weather. Explored most of the rest of my barrio that I haven´t seen yet, then ended up here. I´m hoping the weather holds til the weekend as I signed up for a free hiking trip on Saturday. It´s gonna be another long day, but I´m excited to get out of the city again and see more nature out here. I think we´re going up a mountain or something. I´ll be sure to take cool pictures and try to get them online. Anyway, gotta run. This post ended up being a bit longer than planned.

Palm trees and Spanish Mullets

So I finally have a chance to update this thing. Currently, I´m sitting in a cybercafe/gaming cafe thing across the park in my barrio, with a bunch of bratty little kids crowded around the computer next to me watching their other bratty friend play Grand Theft Auto.

Anyhow, it´s been an eventful week for me, as I´m in the very first stages of adapting to Spanish life. So far, so good. As a warning, this is gonna be kind of a long post as I´m gonna be explaining all of the new stuff I´ve done and seen. Might get dry at times, but future posts will probably be slightly less detailed.

Rundown of my time here so far:

Arrived into Alicante on Monday around 4 after being in airports/airplanes for something like 23 hours. Tired and nearing the end of my wits, I had to turn on the social/amiable Dan to start to meet the other 114 students in my program. Not so bad. Meeting people on no sleep is a lot like meeting people while drunk, so it turned out to be a pretty good time. Anyway, after dropping luggage off at the hotel, there was some obligatory orientation stuff, then the group split in two and my half ate at some weird Italian place. Went back to hotel and passed out, only to be awoken by a crazy thunderstorm at 2 in the morning. I guess it never ever ever rains in Alicante (it´s a coastal desert climate), although in the past month it had rained more than in the last 10 years or something ridiculous like that. Since absolutely every walking surface in the city is made of stone, getting around was a slippery fun time.

I´m still trying to figure out if Alicante is beautiful or ugly. On the one hand there is an awesome Arab-built castle (from when the Moors ruled the land) on a big old hill right on the edge of El Barrio, and the whole city, which rests on the Mediterranian, is filled with palm trees. Once the sun came out and the temp. rose to 60, it started to feel a little like paradise when near the coast. Can´t wait for Spring. On the other hand, the city buildings are really pretty ugly. It´s a mix of old and semi-modern architecture (sorry, no pics yet. still not sure if I´m gonna be able to post any or not), and is smattered with crappy-ass graffiti. Oh, and there are mullets aplenty, some with sexy rat tails on the ends of them. I´m still considering growing one myself.

The next day was lots and lots of orientation stuff. As a side note, CIEE really doesn´t have their act together this semester. The program is the biggest its ever been in this city and is basically a logistical nightmare. Lots of waiting, nothing ever happens on time, etc. etc. Not a huge deal, and probably couldn´t be avoided, but just some added stress when trying to adjust to Spain while getting over jetlag. Otherwise, orientation was nothing special and really repetitive. During the day, we ate lunch in some restuarant in smaller groups. I had conejo (rabbit) for the first time. Not too bad, but kinda gamey. At night we ate at this big buffet place that had lots and lots of traditional (mediocre) Spanish food. I like how they leave the heads on the shrimp though, so you have something to play with when you´re done eating. Afterwards, went to a touristy Irish pub and drank me a pint of tasty English Ale. Good to be back over the Atlantic where good beer is the rule, not the exception. Decided not to go out partying with the huge group of kids as we needed to be up at 8 for desayuno.

The next day we had to check out of the hotel earlier than was reasonable. After more orientation, we went over the the University of Alicante campus which is the school I´m taking classes at (aka Trendy Mullet Heaven - my friend, Eric, and I counted no less than 20 mullets in a 5 minute span). We ate some godawful cafeteria food, then met some of our intercambios, which are UA students studying English who we are going to have to do a few projects with over the course of the semester. Some of them were shy, but I managed to talk to a few of them. Needless to say, their English was much better than our Spanish. After that, we went to some building and after an excruciating 2 and a half hour wait, I was introduced to my Spanish host family. They subsequently took me home and fed me a superdelicious Spanish tortilla - basically an omlette that had potatos and onions. They served tortilla at the hotel breakfasts but they were cold and not even a quarter as good. I really like how in Spanish culture, they put the salad in the middle of the table and everybody eats it from the same plate. It gives meals a much more social atmosphere. Some other awesome food I´ve had includes a kickass paella, fried garlic mashed potato balls, about 50 different kinds of pig (Spaniards love their ham), this artichoke and tomato stew/soup thing, and a few different kinds of tasty fish. Also, the fruit here is amazing and fresh. Valencia oranges are incredible as is almost every kind of produce I´ve had since arriving here.

Mi familia is extremely nice. Mi madre, Gabriella, seems to have done this student hosting thing a lot, because she is really good at talking slow and explaining things in simple words so I can understand. She makes me three meals a day, does my laundry, and makes my bed. Good deal. Mi hermano, Javier, is around 27 and listens to metal, so that works out pretty well for me, too. Mi papa, Jesus (can´t figure out the accent thing with these keyboards) doesn´t talk as much as Gabriella, but is still a nice guy and likes to crack wise. None of them, except Javier, speak a lick of English (and he barely knows any at all)... if they do speak English, they aren´t speaking any of it while I´m in the room. It suits me fine, as I´ve only lived with them for 2 days now but my conversational skills have improved immensly.

Yesterday, we finished up with orientation stuff, so I went out and got my cell phone in order. My phone number is 011-34-666-165-635. Send me text messages (shouldn´t cost extra) or give a ring if you wanna chat at any point. I´m 6 hours ahead of the U.S. though, so keep that in mind. Also decided to go out last night to another Irish-type touristy bar. This one was cooler than the first as it had live blues and better beer than the last one. the band was doing near-perfect covers of American blues songs with the accent and everything. I noticed that if Spanish music exists, they don´t play it in Alicante. Every public place that has any kind of music plays American music. Maybe American music makes people want to shop more (???).

Today, we had our placement exams for our 3-week language course. I think I may have bombed mine, but it´s not really that important. Regardless, because I´ve already taken 3 semesters of college Spanish (not that you can tell from my ability to speak), I have been forcibly placed into the program where all of the classes will be taught entirely in Spanish. oughta be interesting... Hopefully the intensive course will do its job.

On the whole I´ve had a great time so far and am loving being here.

Some other stuff worth mentioning:

- It´s definitely a change of pace to live in a country where there is almost no sense of personal space whatsoever. There´s no such thing as a "personal bubble" or whatever. People will pretty much get right up in your face when they are talking or put they hands on you even without knowing you. I don´t mind it as much as I thought I would as its sort of welcoming in a country where I currently feel out of place.

- People in Alicante don´t know nearly as much English as I thought they would, with many of them knowing none whatsoever. This is somewhat of a pleasant surprise as I was worried I would end up having to break down and use English everytime I go out and do anything. Now I´m forced to figure out what I want to say if I want to accomplish anything.

- My fear of picking up a smoking habit can be allayed slightly. As of January 1st, 2006, a new law was passed that has banned smoking from all work places, indoor public places, and almost all restaurants - except those that are under 100 sq. meters - and if they do allow smoking, nobody under 16 is allowed inside. This is also good, because now my clothes will only smell like stale smoke when I go out to bars. There´s also this huge anti-smoking campaign being kicked into gear here, insuring smokers will one day become the modern day leper, just like in the US.

- On the whole, the US and Spain are a lot more alike than I expected. I suppose I should have assumed that most western countries are going to be a lot alike. They shop a lot here, watch a lot of TV, and play video games - not that I really had any image of this place in my mind ahead of time. There´s always plenty of familiar things around me if I need them, though. It´ll be nice to visit some other countries and see how things are different/similar as well.

Well, this has gotten long enough, so I´m off to grab some dinner and figure out what´s going on tonight. Tomorrow is the city tour, so I´ll get to check out the castle on the hill. Nothing on the schedule for Sunday, so I´m gonna go out tomorrow night and see what the Spanish nightlife is all about. I´ve been told its a pretty wild scene here, so it should be a good time. Next time I post, I should be in la biblioteca at the university.

Out.

Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane...

I'm outta here tonight for London, where I'll wait for a few hours before heading on to Spain for about 5 months. Good deal. Needless to say I'm pretty excited. I have a bunch of little crap to do today, so this first post isn't going to be as thought out as I originally planned. No matter.

Disclaimer: This blog is being written primarily for school. I need to keep a journal to get credit for my classes and whatnot, but I've decided to make it an online journal 'cause I figure there are at least a few people who wanna keep track of my adventure. Because of the potentially wide audience, it's not gonna get too racy here, so if you're wanting for jucier detail, just drop me an email at the.defenestrator@gmail.com and i'll be sure to provide as much detail as I can clearly remember.

This is also my first attempt at ever writing a blog, so it'll probably take me a little while to get used to doing something like this.

Onward:

My trip comes at a time in my life when I definitely need some change and want to try to stir things up a little bit. I'm fast approaching the end of my higher education and want to get my life together (i.e. get at least a little more direction). After recovering from an unlucky "occurence" last December, I can assuredly move forward with this trip. I figure I oughta have some goals while out of the country so here they are as I have them figured out so far (I'll think of more while I'm waiting in the terminal at the airport):

- Learn Spanish fluently - This seems like a no brainer, but I'm told you don't NEED to know Spanish to get by in Alicante. I'm still going to make it a point to become as familiar with the language as humanly possible.

- Get humbled - I've lived in Massachusetts my whole life and haven't honestly been challenged with any real sort of change in my life, so I feel like being in a foreign land with a foreign language can give me a good smack in the face. Basically, I want to come back and be a better, more tolerant person.

- Meet assloads of people from all over the world - I want to broadly expand the list of countries I know people from as I think it's always good to have as many points of view influencing my life as possible. Plus, knowing more people internationally gives me more footholds if/when I eventually try to flee this great nation of ours (still very much a pipe dream at this point).

- Learn to dance - Good skill to have, as far as I can tell.

And some things I'm trying to avoid:

- Starting a smoking habit - I've heard everybody and their mother smokes in Europe, so I'm hoping it doesn't rub off as I've seen happen with other friends who've travelled abroad.

- Partying excessively - I've learned that after hitting a certain point of drunkeness, it doesn't really matter where you are or who you're with as your ability to focus on anything besides yourself becomes nearly impossible. Such things negate the point of leaving the U.S. in the first place, so I'm looking for a lot more out of this trip than just cheap booze and nice weather to enjoy it in.

That's what I got so far. Some other stuff to mention. No phone number yet, trying to iron those kinks out, but anybody who wants to send text messages should be able to do that for no extra cost once I get a phone (details to come...). If anybody needs my actual address for any reason, here it is:

Daniel Rosen - CIEE
C/o Francisco Diez
CIEE
Aulario II
Universidad de Alicante
San Vicente del Raspeig
03690 - Alicante, Spain

One more thing. Anybody who wants to can post comments after each of my entries, so definitely feel free to do so if for no reason other than to let me know you're following along. I want to try to keep in touch with as many people as possible, but it's going to be tough not having a consistent internet connection.

Out