Saturday night sure was... "interesting". I guess I should say things were slightly unhinged, but that implies lots of things happened that I can´t really go into much detail about, so I´ll just stick to saying things were "interesting." Besides, it would be impolite to discuss in earnest some of the activities I witnessed some of my peers from the program partaking in. I don´t even want to talk about some of the crap the Spaniards were getting into.
I, myself, managed to maintain a rather high level of sobriety (for no reason in particular), but maybe that´s why so many things I saw last night seemed so much more crazy. Things started relatively mild, with a couple stages setup on Las Ramblas featuring some bad, but festive music. People were milling about seeming to have a good time, but things maintained a decently family-oriented atmosphere. However, as the night progressed the streets seemed to descend into a thick haze of alcohol-induced sleaze.
Most of the time (with certain exceptions), I think I dislike events where huge masses of people are getting extremely inebriated at once. I came up with a basic idea of why people seem to operate at their poorest and most selfish when under the influence of large amounts of alcohol. I am always reminded of this when lots of people around me are a lot drunker than I am, because I see a lot of sketchy behavior at once. Obviously, as we drink, more and more of our basic mental and motor functions break down, making it more difficult to perform basic tasks. As a result, we´re forced to focus more of our energy towards standing upright, keeping our eyes open, talking coherently, etc., while everything else (remembering to zip up our fly, paying for a drink, watching out for our friends) is relegated to our drunk auto-pilot program, whose effectiveness also happens to depend on how much booze is in our blood. Ultimately, this means we become pretty selfish creatures when we´re a few too many deep, mostly as an act of instinctual self-preservation. The consequences of these "survival skills" can be seen socially in a myriad of ways. This can be played out a whole lot further, and I could give lots of examples (especially from last night), but I´m just trying to get my basic point across. So, for the most part, last night wasn´t a sour experience per se, but I guess I wasn´t in the right "frame-of-mind" to not notice how slimy things were looking at times.
Anyway
People in Spain always go out with their big group of friends. I don´t know if you can call it an intesified form of the "clique" system, but people here seem to hold fast to one set of friends and these friends do absolutely everything together. So while it shouldn´t be so surprising that these groups all dress in identical costumes when they go out for Carnival, it still was... at least until after the 5th set of slutty nurses walked by. Usually, for Halloween in the States, people pride themselves on how original or creative they can be. Here, it seems like they should hand out awards for the most like-minded folks. It was easy to spot groups of Americans, because everybody in the crowd would be sporting a different costume. Even when we´re dressed up to fit in, we still stick out like sore thumbs.
One other thing I appreciated seeing was how there were large portable tents set up in various locations near the festivities where volunteers were stationed to attend to people in immediate need of care (i.e. getting their stomachs pumped). These stations were notoriusly not-busy which is definitely A Good Thing, but I think it´s comforting that the people are well looked after if they go a little overboard. Despite the overwhelming atmosphere of chaos, there was still safety nets available.
Other than that, there´s surprisingly little else (of a more general nature) to discuss. An imagination is only required if you wish to envision the juicier details of a publically condoned, all-night boozefest in the streets. This truly does make me wonder what the Fogueres de Sant Joan is like (the HUGE multi-day festival in Alicante that takes place after I leave in June). I suppose I´ll get a sample of a real Spanish festival when I spend a night in Valencia for Las Fallas in a few weeks, but it would be cool to experience an entire weeklong one.
Times about at the internet cafe, so I´m off to do some homework and get ready for a fun week of classes.
Chau
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Last Weekend, Festivities to Come, and Finding Religion in España
Not a whole lot to report on this week, but I shall report nonetheless.
Last weekend was really low key, so not much going on over there. I guess there was one small thing: I was introduced to the number one botellón spot in Alicante. It´s near the bottom of the hill that the Castillo is on, and it was interestingly educational to experience. Basically tons of Spanish students (college-aged) come out to this spot with bottles, mixers, and -get this- bags of ice and plastic cups, then proceed to make mixed drinks and socialize until it´s late enough to hit up the clubs at el puerto. I found this to be downright hysterical, because if there was something equivalent to it in the states, it would simply involve lots and lots of 30-racks of bad beer. People actually bring out ice and cups and make mixed drinks when they drink in public here. Ridiculous!
Not sure how often you folks check the picture page, but I´ve updated pretty recently with my impromptu "Walking Tour of Alicante." (the other semi-notable thing I did over the weekend). I went a little overboard with the pictures of skinned rabbits at the Mercado Central, but they´re just so fun! Check it out. Link is to the right.
Finished doing all the necessary booking for my Spring Break trip, which is exciting and relieving. I think I posted the plan before, but as it stands now it´s looking like Amsterdam for 2 nights, then on to Rotterdam for 3 nights. After that, we´ll hop onto a train to Brussels (in Belgium) where we´ll drink some tasty beer and hopefully make it out to a few abbeys in the countryside (although this is still up for debate). At the very least we hope to make a daytrip or two to some close surrounding cities (Gent or Antwerp, perhaps), although I think they speak less English in these places than they do in Brussels. Neither me nor Eric knows French or German (or is Dutch the other language they speak there?) at all, so things should be interesting to say the least. After 4 nights in Belgium, I´m splitting off to England (3 nights) by myself to visit Matt. He´ll be on break himself, so we should be able to have an enjoyable weekend with his friends before I head back to Alicante on Monday. This isn´t happening until the middle of April, but I´m still extremely excited about the whole thing.
The parents are set to visit the weekend after this coming one. I´m struggling to think of things to keep them occupied with in Alicante, as there is not a whole lot to do here. Mi madre española said she wants to have them over for comida one day which will give me the honor of playing translator. That should be a barrel of laughs. I´ll remain optimistic that things won´t break into either a) a long awakwardly silent affair or b) a talk-fest that will have my brain bleeding trying to constantly translate. we shall see...
Paco, the dictatorial program director (as many now refer to him), has heeded to the many complaints of students disaffected by an extremely large workload that has been bestowed upon us and has given us a treat...
Las Fallas is a huge, week-long festival in Valencia (the 3rd largest city in Spain, which is about an hour and a half north of Alicante) that involves the construction of €30,000+ gigundus paper/wood floats by every section of the city. These are paraded about during the week (or maybe only once during a giant city-wide parade, not too sure on this detail). Basically the week is a non-stop party in the street, day in-day out, which culminates in the eventual burning of said floats at midnight on Sunday. This festival was played up quite a bit when we first arrived here in Alicante, but we were to have class the Monday that immediately followed it. Paco has graciously given us this Monday off so we can at least head in and get some partying done while watching shit burn on the final night of the festival. It´s impossible to find accomodations as all hostels require a 5 night minimum for booking, so I´ll be heading in Sunday evening (directly from a group sponsored trip in Madrid), and spending the whole night and morning enjoying the festivities. I´ll report back after this occurs with plenty of pictures.
Ooh, something funny happened while I was taking pictures for my Walking Tour of Alicante. This well-dressed dude saw me taking pictures and came up to talk to me. He was really friendly and was asking about what I was doing studying here and all that good stuff. It was cool to talk to someone new in español, and he seemed harmless enough. All of a sudden, he holds out this little pamphlet/magazine thing and tells me it´s free so I should take it. There was a picture of a woman and a baby on the cover and it said something about family values or whatever. Figured it would be good practice reading material (like the vicious anti-socialist leaflets that this guy storms around handing out are), so I take it and thank the guy. He walks off, and I start to leaf through only to find another, smaller pamphlet inside.On the cover of this one, there is a woman kneeling down infront of something (a grave maybe?) crying, and it says something about waiting for the return of Jehova, and then all this menacing crap on the inside about how we´re all doomed unless we repent. I then realize I had been approached by a real live Spanish Jehova´s Witness! I immediately threw the pamphlets out on sheer principle, but I kind of wish I kept them now just for kicks. Having become well-acquainted with the beliefs and policies of JWs from the Cults and Sects class I took last semester, I figured -at the time- there wasn´t too much the pamphlets had to offer anyway that I didn´t already know. I´ve never been approached by a Jehova´s witness in the U.S. so this was my first genuine experience, which is why I felt the desire to share it with you all.
Finished up my Spanish cooking class yesterday. We learned to make 6 different kinds of tapas, paella, Spanish tortilla, and this really tasty gazpacho. We also learned to make this cream dessert, which was delcious, but seemed hard to make. Still, there´s a few more things I know how to make now that I entertain friends with.
Every week in school we have a general theme or topic that we focus on related to Spanish culture. The first two weeks it was music (1st week was the 80s, 2nd week was current stuff). This week we´re focusing on Spanish food and wine. When we got here they said that Spanish people are in love with their cuisine and they think it is the greatest food in the world, and I can now confidently endorse this statement. After having popaganda about how healthy and incredible the Spanish diet is pounded into my head for 3+ days, I am quite certain that Spaniards have no idea there is any other way to eat than the way they do. I guess that´s why so many ethnic restaurants do so poorly with the locals. I suppose I´ve given the Spanish diet a bad rap for being really unhealthy, but I suppose if you are doing it right, it can be pretty well rounded. I think that my madre cooks a lot of fried meat because the guys in the house like that kind of stuff and yell at her if she doesn´t make it often enough. Still, there is no way that the amount of olive oil they use can be considered good for you. Also, we had to hear about how wine is the greatest discovery since... whatever came before wine. They talk the stuff up like it can cure every disease known to man (as long as it´s consumed in moderation). Somehow, I don´t think all of the mixed drinks Spanish youth consume while they botellón on the weekends is quite as healthful, but I guess they are on the right track.
Speaking of food and drink, I´m going to head off and get some. They have free paella, tapas, and wine/beer at one of the cafeterias here on campus every Thursday, so I´d be stupid to pass up the opportunity. Afterwards, it´s off to my uber-dull literature class. After some homework, I´m off to the jazz club tonight, one of my favorite places to be in Alicante.
Adios!
Last weekend was really low key, so not much going on over there. I guess there was one small thing: I was introduced to the number one botellón spot in Alicante. It´s near the bottom of the hill that the Castillo is on, and it was interestingly educational to experience. Basically tons of Spanish students (college-aged) come out to this spot with bottles, mixers, and -get this- bags of ice and plastic cups, then proceed to make mixed drinks and socialize until it´s late enough to hit up the clubs at el puerto. I found this to be downright hysterical, because if there was something equivalent to it in the states, it would simply involve lots and lots of 30-racks of bad beer. People actually bring out ice and cups and make mixed drinks when they drink in public here. Ridiculous!
Not sure how often you folks check the picture page, but I´ve updated pretty recently with my impromptu "Walking Tour of Alicante." (the other semi-notable thing I did over the weekend). I went a little overboard with the pictures of skinned rabbits at the Mercado Central, but they´re just so fun! Check it out. Link is to the right.
Finished doing all the necessary booking for my Spring Break trip, which is exciting and relieving. I think I posted the plan before, but as it stands now it´s looking like Amsterdam for 2 nights, then on to Rotterdam for 3 nights. After that, we´ll hop onto a train to Brussels (in Belgium) where we´ll drink some tasty beer and hopefully make it out to a few abbeys in the countryside (although this is still up for debate). At the very least we hope to make a daytrip or two to some close surrounding cities (Gent or Antwerp, perhaps), although I think they speak less English in these places than they do in Brussels. Neither me nor Eric knows French or German (or is Dutch the other language they speak there?) at all, so things should be interesting to say the least. After 4 nights in Belgium, I´m splitting off to England (3 nights) by myself to visit Matt. He´ll be on break himself, so we should be able to have an enjoyable weekend with his friends before I head back to Alicante on Monday. This isn´t happening until the middle of April, but I´m still extremely excited about the whole thing.
The parents are set to visit the weekend after this coming one. I´m struggling to think of things to keep them occupied with in Alicante, as there is not a whole lot to do here. Mi madre española said she wants to have them over for comida one day which will give me the honor of playing translator. That should be a barrel of laughs. I´ll remain optimistic that things won´t break into either a) a long awakwardly silent affair or b) a talk-fest that will have my brain bleeding trying to constantly translate. we shall see...
Paco, the dictatorial program director (as many now refer to him), has heeded to the many complaints of students disaffected by an extremely large workload that has been bestowed upon us and has given us a treat...
Las Fallas is a huge, week-long festival in Valencia (the 3rd largest city in Spain, which is about an hour and a half north of Alicante) that involves the construction of €30,000+ gigundus paper/wood floats by every section of the city. These are paraded about during the week (or maybe only once during a giant city-wide parade, not too sure on this detail). Basically the week is a non-stop party in the street, day in-day out, which culminates in the eventual burning of said floats at midnight on Sunday. This festival was played up quite a bit when we first arrived here in Alicante, but we were to have class the Monday that immediately followed it. Paco has graciously given us this Monday off so we can at least head in and get some partying done while watching shit burn on the final night of the festival. It´s impossible to find accomodations as all hostels require a 5 night minimum for booking, so I´ll be heading in Sunday evening (directly from a group sponsored trip in Madrid), and spending the whole night and morning enjoying the festivities. I´ll report back after this occurs with plenty of pictures.
Ooh, something funny happened while I was taking pictures for my Walking Tour of Alicante. This well-dressed dude saw me taking pictures and came up to talk to me. He was really friendly and was asking about what I was doing studying here and all that good stuff. It was cool to talk to someone new in español, and he seemed harmless enough. All of a sudden, he holds out this little pamphlet/magazine thing and tells me it´s free so I should take it. There was a picture of a woman and a baby on the cover and it said something about family values or whatever. Figured it would be good practice reading material (like the vicious anti-socialist leaflets that this guy storms around handing out are), so I take it and thank the guy. He walks off, and I start to leaf through only to find another, smaller pamphlet inside.On the cover of this one, there is a woman kneeling down infront of something (a grave maybe?) crying, and it says something about waiting for the return of Jehova, and then all this menacing crap on the inside about how we´re all doomed unless we repent. I then realize I had been approached by a real live Spanish Jehova´s Witness! I immediately threw the pamphlets out on sheer principle, but I kind of wish I kept them now just for kicks. Having become well-acquainted with the beliefs and policies of JWs from the Cults and Sects class I took last semester, I figured -at the time- there wasn´t too much the pamphlets had to offer anyway that I didn´t already know. I´ve never been approached by a Jehova´s witness in the U.S. so this was my first genuine experience, which is why I felt the desire to share it with you all.
Finished up my Spanish cooking class yesterday. We learned to make 6 different kinds of tapas, paella, Spanish tortilla, and this really tasty gazpacho. We also learned to make this cream dessert, which was delcious, but seemed hard to make. Still, there´s a few more things I know how to make now that I entertain friends with.
Every week in school we have a general theme or topic that we focus on related to Spanish culture. The first two weeks it was music (1st week was the 80s, 2nd week was current stuff). This week we´re focusing on Spanish food and wine. When we got here they said that Spanish people are in love with their cuisine and they think it is the greatest food in the world, and I can now confidently endorse this statement. After having popaganda about how healthy and incredible the Spanish diet is pounded into my head for 3+ days, I am quite certain that Spaniards have no idea there is any other way to eat than the way they do. I guess that´s why so many ethnic restaurants do so poorly with the locals. I suppose I´ve given the Spanish diet a bad rap for being really unhealthy, but I suppose if you are doing it right, it can be pretty well rounded. I think that my madre cooks a lot of fried meat because the guys in the house like that kind of stuff and yell at her if she doesn´t make it often enough. Still, there is no way that the amount of olive oil they use can be considered good for you. Also, we had to hear about how wine is the greatest discovery since... whatever came before wine. They talk the stuff up like it can cure every disease known to man (as long as it´s consumed in moderation). Somehow, I don´t think all of the mixed drinks Spanish youth consume while they botellón on the weekends is quite as healthful, but I guess they are on the right track.
Speaking of food and drink, I´m going to head off and get some. They have free paella, tapas, and wine/beer at one of the cafeterias here on campus every Thursday, so I´d be stupid to pass up the opportunity. Afterwards, it´s off to my uber-dull literature class. After some homework, I´m off to the jazz club tonight, one of my favorite places to be in Alicante.
Adios!
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
taking suggestions...
Open forum time, folks...
What should I be for Carnival this weekend? Hurry, cause the costume stores are packed this week and will only get worse as the weekend gets closer. Carnival is, as I´ve written in my past post, Halloween in February with lots of public drinking and a parade instead of free candy. I need something good and creative. Post in the comments section below. Help me out here, people.
Real post to come soon...
and by the way, posted pics of Alicante on my Flickr page, and upgraded to a Pro account, so from now on, there will be higher quality photos. good stuff.
What should I be for Carnival this weekend? Hurry, cause the costume stores are packed this week and will only get worse as the weekend gets closer. Carnival is, as I´ve written in my past post, Halloween in February with lots of public drinking and a parade instead of free candy. I need something good and creative. Post in the comments section below. Help me out here, people.
Real post to come soon...
and by the way, posted pics of Alicante on my Flickr page, and upgraded to a Pro account, so from now on, there will be higher quality photos. good stuff.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
My trip to Andalusia y muchas cosas
Ok, so it´s been a while since I put anything good up here, but that just means this post is gonna be that much cooler. Finally got myself established in terms of getting pictures posted. Opened a Flickr account finally: the link can be found to the right under my list of HoTT SiTeZ. It´s http://www.flickr.com/photos/sawbones84. I will be putting pictures up at least semi-regularly and it will give you folks a better idea of what I´m seeing with my own eyes. I might post less pictures in this blog than originally planned and just link to pictures over thar. At the time of posting this entry, I only have my Sevilla pics up, but plan on dumping the rest of my camera on there right after, assuming it´s not getting too close to dinner time. I´ve yet to take pics of Alicante, but they will come soon. Weekend after this one is Carnaval, which as best I understand it, is Halloween in February with lots more public drinking (botellón). I´ll try to bring my camera out for at least a little of that too.
One more thing regarding pictures and Flickr: I have a limit on how much I can upload to Flickr per month, so the pics are kind of small and of a lower resolution. If anybody wants higher res, larger copies of any of my pics just shoot me a message and I can get you the original in all it´s glory (usually 800kb to 1mb in size).
Okay, now that the salad is out of the way, on to the first first course...
Sevilla was simply incredible. Such an amazing city filled with tons of things to see and do. My pictures don´t really do it justice, but I think give a decent sample of some of the beauty that is to be experienced there. I pretty much spent the entire weekend with Anastasia, Lauren, and Jessica, some new friends I made on the bus ride up, so in terms of people, my pictures are dominated by them. I did hang out with others, but that was at night when I left my camera safe in the hotel.
So yea, the bus ride sucked pretty royally. 8 hours after all the breaks we took. The bus smelled like 40 or 50 something people in a poorly ventilated vehicle. Much fun. Smelled way worse on the ride back Sunday as most people were too hungover to get up early enough to shower. I guess we were just being more European or something.
We arrived in Sevilla around dinner time, so immediately got ready and went out into the night for (amazing) tapas and whatever else was to ensue. CIEE hooked us up with a few of their stash/horde of "Spanish Helpers." SH´s are Spanish students that are studying English that sacrifice their precious time dragging Americans around making them feel more at home. We happened to get a very cool batch this time around who had some very cool friends and after tapas they showed us where the cheap beer was at. 1.50 euros for 2 beers before midnight was certainly a good deal. By midnight, the street that our bar was on and all of the surrounding area was completely packed with people botellón-ing. All the bars sold 3 euro solo cup beers (or the Spanish equivalent to solo cups) and the entire place had an incrediblely chill yet lively feeling. People were talking, singing, hanging out in the streets all having a great time. I wish I had my camera so you could see what I´m talking about, but you can use your imagination. There wasn´t any fighting or excessive vomitting or anything of such an unpleasant nature.
Got back pretty late, but early compared to the local standard of 8am. Woke up around 11 feeling surprisingly fresh. The day before we received 25 dollars in what can almost literally be called food stamps. They were 5 dollar vouchers that are accepted by certain restaurants in the city. Caught Ana, Jess, and Lauren on their way out and tagged along with them looking for a place that took our food stamps. We decided to stay away from the organized tours our program was putting on, since organized tours are lame. We went to the cathedral which was filled with a huge organ and a bunch of other crap including the supposed casket of little Chrissy Columbus: Conqurer of People Tanner Than Us (no pic, came out too dark, no flash photos allowed inside). Next we climbed to the top of the tower and got a pretty decent view of the city.
Then we walked and walked and walked and saw lots of cool neighborhoods and ate lots of good food. You can see some of the pics over on the Flickr page.
Second night in Sevilla was much more low-key. As great as I felt that morning after laying it on pretty heavy the night before, I decided not to push myself too hard another night. I went out for a little but only had a beer and just talked to a bunch of people. Got back to the hotel and got a good night´s sleep... not that I needed it considering there was plenty of time to sleep on the ride home.
Sunday morning was a little more touring of places we already checked out the day before including the park and the Plaza de España, so we split off on our own and explored more of the park, checking out the flora and fauna. Bus ride back was -as explained above- smelly, and to add insult to injury I had to sit through "i heart huckabees," a movie that makes me wish guns were a more prominent part of Spanish society. yuck
I´d love to get back to Sevilla, but with such a short amount of time here and so many places to see, I´m not sure it´s going to be on the agenda this time around. Definitely recommended for anybody who makes it over to Spain, though.
So that was the weekend, now the rest... the second course I suppose
Classes are a mixed bag at best. For my language class, we lost our very cool, very funny and friendly teacher -Mar- from the intensive course and unwillingly traded her for a bipolar psycho hose beast (to use a Wayne´s World term) who switches between bouncing off the wall, screaming at the top of her lungs to standing very still looking like she is about to burst into tears, whispering to us about the proper uses of the conditional tense. Needless to say, it´s a crappy hour and a half to endure every morning. Besides being generally wacky, she´s a poor teacher in general, not explaining things very well and often speaking either too quickly, loudly OR too softly to be understood easily. I´m going to count on handouts and the book to get everything I need out of the class.
Literature is a straight up dull drag. The teacher seems very cool and is down to earth, but suffers from whatever disease plagues professors who think the only way to teach is with a powerpoint presentaiton. Things can get pretty dry pretty quick as one might imagine. Hoping things will pick up a bit as the semester progresses, although I can´t say spirits are at their highest right now. As a consolation, it looks like it´ll be an easier course than I expected. It´s mostly centered around poetry, so I won´t have to be struggling through any 300 page Spanish novels. yikes.
Modern History is awesome. The teacher is amazing. Really funny and smart and knows how to keep the class moving and interesting. I never look at my watch in that class. Not much else to say, really, except that I´m psyched to be in that class. She´s trying to convince CIEE to take us out on all sorts of field trips too including a possible weekend trip to the Canaries, subsidized by the program. That´d be too sweet for words. The only bummer is a 12-15 pager that counts for 60 or 70 percent of my grade, but I´m doing it on Sevilla so it shouldn´t be too rough.
Speaking of classes, I had the first of three cooking instructionals I signed up for through the university. First course was tapas, and as I suspected earlier, Spanish people do not eat very healthy. Out of the 6 dishes we were taught to make, the lady had to have used a liter of olive oil and an entire jar of mayo. It was still very cool, and I´m glad I went. We learned to make Ensalada Rusa which is peas, carrots, potatos, hard-boiled eggs, and tuna in a large amount of mayonnaise. The version at the cooking class was a little lighter and tastier than my Spanish madre´s though, so that was something at least. We also learned to make croquetes jamón which can best be described as "pork and milk mcnuggets." Sounds gross, but they are freakin´ delicious. I´ll be cooking those up when I get back the states, only with jalapeños. There was also patatas con alioli, which is just boiled, sliced potatos mixed in with this really strong garlic mayonnaise. Ridiculously delicious as well. There was also a fried potato dish with grated garlicky tomatos... again, TASTY AS HELL. There was also this one that was basically sardine sized fish soaked in vinegar and then sprinkled with olive oil and parsley but they weren´t very good. The last was just bread with the garlickly tomato crush mix and a piece of jamón cerano (basicaly prosciutto but a little higher quality) layed out on top. Simple and delicious. I think we´re doing Spanish Tortillas next class, which excites me. I´ll be cookin´ Spanish come June when I get back to the States. Line up now.
Started making plans for Spring Break, which is turning out to be a pretty big pain. Eric and I are planning a rather ambitious journey that starts in Amsterdam, moves to Rotterdam, then to Belgium where we will try to rent a car and do a short countryside tour of as many abbeys and breweries as possible, then back to Brussels where we will catch our respective flights out. Eric will be off to Paris, while I´ll be going to visit Matt in England to do some Proper English Drinking with him and his friends at the tail end of their Spring Break. Then it´s back to Alicante where I´ll have class on Tuesday. Between travel and hostels, there is a whole lot to think about ahead of time, especially with our excursion into the Belgian countryside. Regardless, I´m already getting excited about our adventure even if it isn´t for another solid 2 months.
And some more general random stuff... the dessert?
I´m starting to realize how spoiled I am by a life of total convenience in the States. Even in a modern country like Spain, I find myself getting frustrated from time to time when I can´t immediately get something I need from some big store any time of day. An example is chapstick. I lost my little tube I brought from home and needed a new one. No problem, right? Go to the nearest 24 hour store and pick one of the 500 brands to choose from. WRONG. You´d never notice until you think about it, but it´s incredible how may places don´t sell the stuff. Maybe it´s because Spaniards don´t use it that much, but my precious little pouters get chapped in the dry climate and I need relief. Corte Íngles sells it, but for like €5.00 or something ridiculous (I really need to devote a large section of a post about how much I hate El Corte Íngles. This will come soon), and most of the free time I´ve had this week has come during comida hours when everything closes and Alicante dies for a while (2:00-5:00, every day). With the exception of a few mega-chains like El Corte Íngles, there are very very few "super-stores" here (Carrefour is the only other that comes to mind, but that´s mostly groceries anyway). Beyond that, it seems like there are some unwritten rules about what certain stores do and don´t sell. For instance, you can buy a padlock with a key at a Feretería (hardware store), but not one with a combo lock. You need to go to a sports store to get one with a combo lock. And there doesn´t seem to be any other kind of store that sells padlocks at all. It´s the same story with so many things you´d never even think about. There seems to be a specific store for everything, and however these things are categorized is sometimes completely beyond me. It has been a minor source of frustration, but nothing too terrible to handle.
Language-wise, I´m feeling really good lately, being able to communicate much more smoothly in lots of sitatuations. My comprehension abilities have risen sharply since I´ve started classes, and my lexicon is widening so I can usually carry on a rough conversation about general topics for a good period of time. It takes longer to become bored by Spanish TV as I can generally follow plots more easily now, and I get a lot more from the news.
It´s been weird, cause we were told right off the bat that we would definitely experience culture shock - a period of deep depression where everything is terrible - but I haven´t come close to feeling anything of the sort. Mostly, it´s just gotten better and better as I´ve been here. My language keeps improving and I feel more comfortable every day in general. I do get pretty pissed of at the U.S. when it comes up in the news because there´s a non-stop stream of negative shit pouring out of it. Regardless of how objective I feel I can handle the way the U.S. handles itself on the international scale with the help of the Internet and a relatively sharp set of media-analyzing tools, it has still been a shock to see how preposterous we look from the other side of the ocean. I´m mostly talking politics here, because culturally Spain and the U.S. are frigtheningly similar at times. I´m not going to go into any real detail because my eyes are tired and I could fill an entire post talking about this stuff, but our administration really does look a whole lot more evil from over here, especially after having followed Spanish politics for a bit. At least here there is still somewhat of a sense that the leaders are working for the people, whereas in the U.S. everything is a blatant grab for personal interests. It seems so preposterous that all of this prisoner abuse crap keeps happening while Americans have no real sense of consequences. Over here, everything is so much closer and it´s easy to feel cultural rifts when the people you the people you are gravely offending are your neighbors. It makes our entire system of politics look ridiculous and terrifyingly destructive. Talk about a bad taste in your mouth.
Not to say Europe should be let off the hook. It definitely has it´s fare share of bad politics and xenophobia, but at least here the voices of reason can be heard as loudly as the voices of hypocrisy, if not more clearly.
Enough. This has to be my longest post since I´ve started this thing and my eyeballs want to fall out of my head right now. So much for uploading the rest of my pictures tonight. Time to go home and study. Thanks for following along!
P.S. I want a cat. The random mangy, scarred up strays that are hungry enough to come up to me and let me pet them aren´t doing it for me anymore. I wonder what my host family would say if I brought home a kitten one night...
One more thing regarding pictures and Flickr: I have a limit on how much I can upload to Flickr per month, so the pics are kind of small and of a lower resolution. If anybody wants higher res, larger copies of any of my pics just shoot me a message and I can get you the original in all it´s glory (usually 800kb to 1mb in size).
Okay, now that the salad is out of the way, on to the first first course...
Sevilla was simply incredible. Such an amazing city filled with tons of things to see and do. My pictures don´t really do it justice, but I think give a decent sample of some of the beauty that is to be experienced there. I pretty much spent the entire weekend with Anastasia, Lauren, and Jessica, some new friends I made on the bus ride up, so in terms of people, my pictures are dominated by them. I did hang out with others, but that was at night when I left my camera safe in the hotel.
So yea, the bus ride sucked pretty royally. 8 hours after all the breaks we took. The bus smelled like 40 or 50 something people in a poorly ventilated vehicle. Much fun. Smelled way worse on the ride back Sunday as most people were too hungover to get up early enough to shower. I guess we were just being more European or something.
We arrived in Sevilla around dinner time, so immediately got ready and went out into the night for (amazing) tapas and whatever else was to ensue. CIEE hooked us up with a few of their stash/horde of "Spanish Helpers." SH´s are Spanish students that are studying English that sacrifice their precious time dragging Americans around making them feel more at home. We happened to get a very cool batch this time around who had some very cool friends and after tapas they showed us where the cheap beer was at. 1.50 euros for 2 beers before midnight was certainly a good deal. By midnight, the street that our bar was on and all of the surrounding area was completely packed with people botellón-ing. All the bars sold 3 euro solo cup beers (or the Spanish equivalent to solo cups) and the entire place had an incrediblely chill yet lively feeling. People were talking, singing, hanging out in the streets all having a great time. I wish I had my camera so you could see what I´m talking about, but you can use your imagination. There wasn´t any fighting or excessive vomitting or anything of such an unpleasant nature.
Got back pretty late, but early compared to the local standard of 8am. Woke up around 11 feeling surprisingly fresh. The day before we received 25 dollars in what can almost literally be called food stamps. They were 5 dollar vouchers that are accepted by certain restaurants in the city. Caught Ana, Jess, and Lauren on their way out and tagged along with them looking for a place that took our food stamps. We decided to stay away from the organized tours our program was putting on, since organized tours are lame. We went to the cathedral which was filled with a huge organ and a bunch of other crap including the supposed casket of little Chrissy Columbus: Conqurer of People Tanner Than Us (no pic, came out too dark, no flash photos allowed inside). Next we climbed to the top of the tower and got a pretty decent view of the city.
Then we walked and walked and walked and saw lots of cool neighborhoods and ate lots of good food. You can see some of the pics over on the Flickr page.
Second night in Sevilla was much more low-key. As great as I felt that morning after laying it on pretty heavy the night before, I decided not to push myself too hard another night. I went out for a little but only had a beer and just talked to a bunch of people. Got back to the hotel and got a good night´s sleep... not that I needed it considering there was plenty of time to sleep on the ride home.
Sunday morning was a little more touring of places we already checked out the day before including the park and the Plaza de España, so we split off on our own and explored more of the park, checking out the flora and fauna. Bus ride back was -as explained above- smelly, and to add insult to injury I had to sit through "i heart huckabees," a movie that makes me wish guns were a more prominent part of Spanish society. yuck
I´d love to get back to Sevilla, but with such a short amount of time here and so many places to see, I´m not sure it´s going to be on the agenda this time around. Definitely recommended for anybody who makes it over to Spain, though.
So that was the weekend, now the rest... the second course I suppose
Classes are a mixed bag at best. For my language class, we lost our very cool, very funny and friendly teacher -Mar- from the intensive course and unwillingly traded her for a bipolar psycho hose beast (to use a Wayne´s World term) who switches between bouncing off the wall, screaming at the top of her lungs to standing very still looking like she is about to burst into tears, whispering to us about the proper uses of the conditional tense. Needless to say, it´s a crappy hour and a half to endure every morning. Besides being generally wacky, she´s a poor teacher in general, not explaining things very well and often speaking either too quickly, loudly OR too softly to be understood easily. I´m going to count on handouts and the book to get everything I need out of the class.
Literature is a straight up dull drag. The teacher seems very cool and is down to earth, but suffers from whatever disease plagues professors who think the only way to teach is with a powerpoint presentaiton. Things can get pretty dry pretty quick as one might imagine. Hoping things will pick up a bit as the semester progresses, although I can´t say spirits are at their highest right now. As a consolation, it looks like it´ll be an easier course than I expected. It´s mostly centered around poetry, so I won´t have to be struggling through any 300 page Spanish novels. yikes.
Modern History is awesome. The teacher is amazing. Really funny and smart and knows how to keep the class moving and interesting. I never look at my watch in that class. Not much else to say, really, except that I´m psyched to be in that class. She´s trying to convince CIEE to take us out on all sorts of field trips too including a possible weekend trip to the Canaries, subsidized by the program. That´d be too sweet for words. The only bummer is a 12-15 pager that counts for 60 or 70 percent of my grade, but I´m doing it on Sevilla so it shouldn´t be too rough.
Speaking of classes, I had the first of three cooking instructionals I signed up for through the university. First course was tapas, and as I suspected earlier, Spanish people do not eat very healthy. Out of the 6 dishes we were taught to make, the lady had to have used a liter of olive oil and an entire jar of mayo. It was still very cool, and I´m glad I went. We learned to make Ensalada Rusa which is peas, carrots, potatos, hard-boiled eggs, and tuna in a large amount of mayonnaise. The version at the cooking class was a little lighter and tastier than my Spanish madre´s though, so that was something at least. We also learned to make croquetes jamón which can best be described as "pork and milk mcnuggets." Sounds gross, but they are freakin´ delicious. I´ll be cooking those up when I get back the states, only with jalapeños. There was also patatas con alioli, which is just boiled, sliced potatos mixed in with this really strong garlic mayonnaise. Ridiculously delicious as well. There was also a fried potato dish with grated garlicky tomatos... again, TASTY AS HELL. There was also this one that was basically sardine sized fish soaked in vinegar and then sprinkled with olive oil and parsley but they weren´t very good. The last was just bread with the garlickly tomato crush mix and a piece of jamón cerano (basicaly prosciutto but a little higher quality) layed out on top. Simple and delicious. I think we´re doing Spanish Tortillas next class, which excites me. I´ll be cookin´ Spanish come June when I get back to the States. Line up now.
Started making plans for Spring Break, which is turning out to be a pretty big pain. Eric and I are planning a rather ambitious journey that starts in Amsterdam, moves to Rotterdam, then to Belgium where we will try to rent a car and do a short countryside tour of as many abbeys and breweries as possible, then back to Brussels where we will catch our respective flights out. Eric will be off to Paris, while I´ll be going to visit Matt in England to do some Proper English Drinking with him and his friends at the tail end of their Spring Break. Then it´s back to Alicante where I´ll have class on Tuesday. Between travel and hostels, there is a whole lot to think about ahead of time, especially with our excursion into the Belgian countryside. Regardless, I´m already getting excited about our adventure even if it isn´t for another solid 2 months.
And some more general random stuff... the dessert?
I´m starting to realize how spoiled I am by a life of total convenience in the States. Even in a modern country like Spain, I find myself getting frustrated from time to time when I can´t immediately get something I need from some big store any time of day. An example is chapstick. I lost my little tube I brought from home and needed a new one. No problem, right? Go to the nearest 24 hour store and pick one of the 500 brands to choose from. WRONG. You´d never notice until you think about it, but it´s incredible how may places don´t sell the stuff. Maybe it´s because Spaniards don´t use it that much, but my precious little pouters get chapped in the dry climate and I need relief. Corte Íngles sells it, but for like €5.00 or something ridiculous (I really need to devote a large section of a post about how much I hate El Corte Íngles. This will come soon), and most of the free time I´ve had this week has come during comida hours when everything closes and Alicante dies for a while (2:00-5:00, every day). With the exception of a few mega-chains like El Corte Íngles, there are very very few "super-stores" here (Carrefour is the only other that comes to mind, but that´s mostly groceries anyway). Beyond that, it seems like there are some unwritten rules about what certain stores do and don´t sell. For instance, you can buy a padlock with a key at a Feretería (hardware store), but not one with a combo lock. You need to go to a sports store to get one with a combo lock. And there doesn´t seem to be any other kind of store that sells padlocks at all. It´s the same story with so many things you´d never even think about. There seems to be a specific store for everything, and however these things are categorized is sometimes completely beyond me. It has been a minor source of frustration, but nothing too terrible to handle.
Language-wise, I´m feeling really good lately, being able to communicate much more smoothly in lots of sitatuations. My comprehension abilities have risen sharply since I´ve started classes, and my lexicon is widening so I can usually carry on a rough conversation about general topics for a good period of time. It takes longer to become bored by Spanish TV as I can generally follow plots more easily now, and I get a lot more from the news.
It´s been weird, cause we were told right off the bat that we would definitely experience culture shock - a period of deep depression where everything is terrible - but I haven´t come close to feeling anything of the sort. Mostly, it´s just gotten better and better as I´ve been here. My language keeps improving and I feel more comfortable every day in general. I do get pretty pissed of at the U.S. when it comes up in the news because there´s a non-stop stream of negative shit pouring out of it. Regardless of how objective I feel I can handle the way the U.S. handles itself on the international scale with the help of the Internet and a relatively sharp set of media-analyzing tools, it has still been a shock to see how preposterous we look from the other side of the ocean. I´m mostly talking politics here, because culturally Spain and the U.S. are frigtheningly similar at times. I´m not going to go into any real detail because my eyes are tired and I could fill an entire post talking about this stuff, but our administration really does look a whole lot more evil from over here, especially after having followed Spanish politics for a bit. At least here there is still somewhat of a sense that the leaders are working for the people, whereas in the U.S. everything is a blatant grab for personal interests. It seems so preposterous that all of this prisoner abuse crap keeps happening while Americans have no real sense of consequences. Over here, everything is so much closer and it´s easy to feel cultural rifts when the people you the people you are gravely offending are your neighbors. It makes our entire system of politics look ridiculous and terrifyingly destructive. Talk about a bad taste in your mouth.
Not to say Europe should be let off the hook. It definitely has it´s fare share of bad politics and xenophobia, but at least here the voices of reason can be heard as loudly as the voices of hypocrisy, if not more clearly.
Enough. This has to be my longest post since I´ve started this thing and my eyeballs want to fall out of my head right now. So much for uploading the rest of my pictures tonight. Time to go home and study. Thanks for following along!
P.S. I want a cat. The random mangy, scarred up strays that are hungry enough to come up to me and let me pet them aren´t doing it for me anymore. I wonder what my host family would say if I brought home a kitten one night...
Monday, February 06, 2006
My weekend in Cataluña
Better late than never, I suppose...
Went to Barcelona este fin de semana. Train ride there was long and uneventful, yet I still felt the need to type out this sentence (hmm). Arrived around 7:30 or so, and took the subway to Las Ramblas (tourist central) where my hostel was conveniently located near. I know I haven´t seen that many major cities in my life, but Barcelona has, by far, the best subway system I´ve ever used. It´s cheap as hell (after you buy a pass it´s around 60 cents a ride), extremely well laid out, extremely easy to navigate and really efficient. It´s light years ahead of the joke that is Boston public transportation and about 500 times less confusing than New York´s. It trumps Washington DC and London on price alone.
Anyway, my hostel sucked pretty hard. That´s what I get for booking last minute, I suppose. I go to check in at the lobby and note the attempt at trendiness in the way the place is designed. I guess they would have pulled it off if they kept the joint respectably clean. My room was a small one with 6 beds packed in (3 bunks). I tried to walk around and talk to people in other rooms but everybody gave me the fuck-off stare-of-death and one group of Brits looked like they were ready to jump me just because I interrupted their drunken banter to ask a question. Locked my camera in the safe, and my bag in the luggage room, then went off into the night.
Met up with Nicole, who´s been studying in BCN for 6 months or so now. Met up with her friend and ate at an incredible Mediterranian place. After a great meal, we were feeling pretty tired, but opted to try to go out anyway. First stop was a very chill little bar that was playing good jazz and had an extremely chill vibe. By then it was late, however, so we had to clear out soon after and move on to clubs if we wanted to prolong the night. We went to a hip-hop club that was in my mind kind of a joke. The music was pretty decent but combined with the way Spanish people dance (or rather don´t dance), the whole thing just seemed really awkward. Sometime after we got there I had remembered that I had been up since 5:30 that morning and became unbearably exhausted. Waited up another hour or so eating churros until the subway started running again. Got into the hostel at 6 or so and passed out, only to be woken half a dozen times between then and 11 for increasingly inane reasons. Needless to say, I was in a trash mood for all of Saturday morning/early afternoon.
Met up with Nicole again to see some of the city. We mostly did a lot of walking around and saw a lot of the Gaudí architecture. Gaudí was this incredible Spanish dude who, along with 2 other prominent modernist architects, designed a large handful of stuff for Barcelona during the 20th century. My favorite was the park he designed for some rich Scot. It looked like some sort of fairy-tale place (see below), and it was on a hill so it offered a great view of the city. No pictures of the view because it was crap fog-hazy out, but view pictures are usually boring anyway. Also checked out the Gothic neighborhood that was also filled with beautiful buildings of all shapes and sizes.
Saturday night out:
After another incredible meal at a tiny vegetarian place, we met up with a handful of Nicole´s friends and went out for the night. First up was this gigantic former-factory/warehouse that was converted into a bar. It was rows upon rows of tables filled with people drinking pitchers of whatever you´d like. We chose sangría because it was supposed to be good there, which it was. Somewhere around your umpteenth cup you figure out how sugary the stuff is and pretty much have to stop drinking it. I thought it was charming how they have "to-go" cups if you want to finish up your pitcher after you leave on your way to wherever - not something I think I´ll ever live to see in the United States, although I have heard such things have existed in my parent´s time. I was surprised at how much of a great atmosphere a place like that managed to mantain despite it´s hugeness. I was under the assumption that past a certain size, most places lose their character. I was proven wrong in this case, and in the case of the club we went to afterwards. I won´t bother going into a lot of detail, but basically it was a warehouse that was an entire city block and was filled with huge rooms of people dancing (for the most part) to different kinds of music. So huge but so much fun.
Sunday was void of much activity besides sleeping late and departing from the city. I didn´t really do much sightseeing on the whole (that´s why this post is lacking a bit in substance), but now I really want to go back and cover more ground during the day. Talking to other people in my program that spent the weekend in Barcelona, it sounds like there is a whole lot of great stuff to see. Even if I was trying really hard, it´d be tough to do any substantive amount of sightseeing as there is just so damn much to do.
One other thing about Barcelona is that I didn´t realize how different Catalan is from Spanish. It´s basically the bastard child of French and Spanish, and everybody in Barcelona speaks it. Definitely had some difficulty in the less touristy areas of the city, but everybody there still knew Spanish, even if they preferred to speak Catalan. In the more touristy spots, everybody seemed to know English as well, however. Catalun culture is somewhat different from Spanish culture, as I´ve learned, which explains why some people really want for Catalunya to be an independent country from Spain. I can´t say I know a ton about the subject at the moment, but I´m assuming we´ll cover that topic in my Modern History class.
Speaking of class, I started all of my regular ones this week. I´m not going to go into explaining them now even though I have plenty to say about them because I don´t have much time and there is lots to do today. That will be on next week´s post along with details about my weekend trip to Sevilla. I leave tomorrow right after class, and will be gone until Sunday night. I´ll try to take lotsa good pictures and whatnot, but I´ve found that I´m rather averse to carrying a bulky little piece of expensiveness around wherever I go. I´ll try my best, regardless.
´til next time...
Went to Barcelona este fin de semana. Train ride there was long and uneventful, yet I still felt the need to type out this sentence (hmm). Arrived around 7:30 or so, and took the subway to Las Ramblas (tourist central) where my hostel was conveniently located near. I know I haven´t seen that many major cities in my life, but Barcelona has, by far, the best subway system I´ve ever used. It´s cheap as hell (after you buy a pass it´s around 60 cents a ride), extremely well laid out, extremely easy to navigate and really efficient. It´s light years ahead of the joke that is Boston public transportation and about 500 times less confusing than New York´s. It trumps Washington DC and London on price alone.
Anyway, my hostel sucked pretty hard. That´s what I get for booking last minute, I suppose. I go to check in at the lobby and note the attempt at trendiness in the way the place is designed. I guess they would have pulled it off if they kept the joint respectably clean. My room was a small one with 6 beds packed in (3 bunks). I tried to walk around and talk to people in other rooms but everybody gave me the fuck-off stare-of-death and one group of Brits looked like they were ready to jump me just because I interrupted their drunken banter to ask a question. Locked my camera in the safe, and my bag in the luggage room, then went off into the night.
Met up with Nicole, who´s been studying in BCN for 6 months or so now. Met up with her friend and ate at an incredible Mediterranian place. After a great meal, we were feeling pretty tired, but opted to try to go out anyway. First stop was a very chill little bar that was playing good jazz and had an extremely chill vibe. By then it was late, however, so we had to clear out soon after and move on to clubs if we wanted to prolong the night. We went to a hip-hop club that was in my mind kind of a joke. The music was pretty decent but combined with the way Spanish people dance (or rather don´t dance), the whole thing just seemed really awkward. Sometime after we got there I had remembered that I had been up since 5:30 that morning and became unbearably exhausted. Waited up another hour or so eating churros until the subway started running again. Got into the hostel at 6 or so and passed out, only to be woken half a dozen times between then and 11 for increasingly inane reasons. Needless to say, I was in a trash mood for all of Saturday morning/early afternoon.
Met up with Nicole again to see some of the city. We mostly did a lot of walking around and saw a lot of the Gaudí architecture. Gaudí was this incredible Spanish dude who, along with 2 other prominent modernist architects, designed a large handful of stuff for Barcelona during the 20th century. My favorite was the park he designed for some rich Scot. It looked like some sort of fairy-tale place (see below), and it was on a hill so it offered a great view of the city. No pictures of the view because it was crap fog-hazy out, but view pictures are usually boring anyway. Also checked out the Gothic neighborhood that was also filled with beautiful buildings of all shapes and sizes.
Saturday night out:
After another incredible meal at a tiny vegetarian place, we met up with a handful of Nicole´s friends and went out for the night. First up was this gigantic former-factory/warehouse that was converted into a bar. It was rows upon rows of tables filled with people drinking pitchers of whatever you´d like. We chose sangría because it was supposed to be good there, which it was. Somewhere around your umpteenth cup you figure out how sugary the stuff is and pretty much have to stop drinking it. I thought it was charming how they have "to-go" cups if you want to finish up your pitcher after you leave on your way to wherever - not something I think I´ll ever live to see in the United States, although I have heard such things have existed in my parent´s time. I was surprised at how much of a great atmosphere a place like that managed to mantain despite it´s hugeness. I was under the assumption that past a certain size, most places lose their character. I was proven wrong in this case, and in the case of the club we went to afterwards. I won´t bother going into a lot of detail, but basically it was a warehouse that was an entire city block and was filled with huge rooms of people dancing (for the most part) to different kinds of music. So huge but so much fun.
Sunday was void of much activity besides sleeping late and departing from the city. I didn´t really do much sightseeing on the whole (that´s why this post is lacking a bit in substance), but now I really want to go back and cover more ground during the day. Talking to other people in my program that spent the weekend in Barcelona, it sounds like there is a whole lot of great stuff to see. Even if I was trying really hard, it´d be tough to do any substantive amount of sightseeing as there is just so damn much to do.
One other thing about Barcelona is that I didn´t realize how different Catalan is from Spanish. It´s basically the bastard child of French and Spanish, and everybody in Barcelona speaks it. Definitely had some difficulty in the less touristy areas of the city, but everybody there still knew Spanish, even if they preferred to speak Catalan. In the more touristy spots, everybody seemed to know English as well, however. Catalun culture is somewhat different from Spanish culture, as I´ve learned, which explains why some people really want for Catalunya to be an independent country from Spain. I can´t say I know a ton about the subject at the moment, but I´m assuming we´ll cover that topic in my Modern History class.
Speaking of class, I started all of my regular ones this week. I´m not going to go into explaining them now even though I have plenty to say about them because I don´t have much time and there is lots to do today. That will be on next week´s post along with details about my weekend trip to Sevilla. I leave tomorrow right after class, and will be gone until Sunday night. I´ll try to take lotsa good pictures and whatnot, but I´ve found that I´m rather averse to carrying a bulky little piece of expensiveness around wherever I go. I´ll try my best, regardless.
´til next time...
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Drawing up a blank for a good title
Suddenly realized it´s about time for a substantial post (we have to write a certain amount per week for the journal requirement at NU, and I like to keep everyone in the know anyway), but I think I might come up a little bit short as I don´t have all that much to reflect on this week. That´s to say I´m really just chillin´ trying to find a routine here and really get comfortable, so not a whole lot new has been happening in the very recent past.
Off to Barcelona tomorrow right after my final exam for my 3-week intensive Spanish course (a final exam tomorrow that´s worth 30 percent of my grade). It´s gotten pretty tough in the last week as we´ve been trying to learn when to use which of the 3 past tenses at which times - a huge headache. Turns out every single person in class did terrible on the exam last Friday and it had to be scaled (otherwise my teacher would probably get in trouble methinks). I ended up with an 80 which seemed to be the best grade out of the 8 of us in my class. That´s something I guess. Even though I´m not at all the strongest conversationally in class, I get the grammar thing better than most - probably because I´ve always been good with it in English - so it makes me look good on paper. Unfortunately, I´m still stammering a lot when trying to talk to people face-to-face. Talking to my intercambio and my family a lot is helping though, and I ask them to correct me when I speak incorrectly.
So yeah, Barcelona tomorrow. I´m psyched to see a real Spanish city. Alicante is awesome, but it´s smaller than Boston and seems to take on the atmosphere of Old People Farm at times - probably because of the generally mild climate it has year-round. Seeing a big city like Barcelona will be a good chance to get a better grip on Spanish urban life. I shall report back on that with pictures and all that good stuff.
Speaking of pictures, I´m really gonna try to get off my ass and take some for you folks to see. A virtual tour of Alicante if you will. It was nicer weather out the last couple days, so maybe next week I´ll get a chance to snap some off.
When I get back from BCN, I´ll be starting regular classes on Monday which I´m half excited, half anxious about (I just needed to use a thesaurus to find the word anxious, an example of how screwy my language centers are getting). I think it´ll be a great challenge taking classes that are entirely in Spanish, but I´m hoping it won´t hurt my grades too much. I wish NU would take these classes as pass/fail, but then I wouldn´t get credit for my Spanish minor. I guess I´ll just need to work that much harder, but no complaints there.
And on the topic of language and all that, I´ve been reading books lately at breakneck speed. Basically when I have downtime at home, I really don´t generally feel like watching TV much because, frankly, it gets old really fast - even if it is good comprehension practice. Los Simpsons loses it´s novelty as you realize how important the original voices are to the humor (absolutely everything is dubbed in this country, but I won´t write about why in this post. It´s actually a rather interesting story). As a result, I end up reading a lot of books. I ordered a few from Amazon and am tearing through those along with some that my friend is letting me borrow. I´m wondering if reading all that well-versed English will hold me back from wrapping my head around español. Tough to say at this point. As a consolation, I´m taking a Spanish Literature class for the semester, so maybe reading well versed Spanish will counteract my English readings. Time will tell...
We got some info today about cheap classes and activities we can partake in during the semester. They have both cooking and dancing lessons, which both excite me great deal. It´d be cool to learn Spanish Salsa or Flamenco, but I also would like to learn how to cook Spanish salsa - kind of a stew/soup thing that can have all sorts of stuff in it - quite unlike salsa we´re used to. I suppose it´s possible to do both, but I don´t wanna do that at the same time. Both lessons are incredibly cheap so I´d be stupid not to take advantage. It´d be cool to come back to the States a cooking and dancing machine, although that´s obviously not a very likely outcome. Gotta shoot for the stars though, no?
Small note about Spanish food. I think mi madre fries crap a bit too much. Not that it doesn´t taste great, but it´s gotten to the point now where I´m eating less healthy here than back at home. She either pan or deep fries something at least 4 times a week. Not everybody else in the program I´ve talked to has been having the same experience as me, but a handful have. I´ve been balancing it off with a lot of fruits and veggies and I walk a ton, but my olive oil intake has increased 400% since I got here. I know olive oil is supposedly good for you, but I gotta figure there is a cut-off point somewhere before the gallon a week she uses in her cooking (not nearly as much of an exaggeration as you´d like to think, if it is one at all). I´m thinking of asking her to grill me more stuff, which she does for herself. I guess she assumes all guys like to eat fried meat all the time... then again, most guys do. Well, it´s only for 4 more months, so no big deal I suppose - just going to enjoy it while I´m here, it all tastes so good.
I´m running a bit low on things to talk about, and I really should get down to studying as I have so much of it to do tonight. No time left on the meter here to proofread, so you guys get the unpolished version. Hope it ain´t too rough around the edges. Brushing over though, it looks like this turned in to a decent entry, anyway. Good show!
Much love
Off to Barcelona tomorrow right after my final exam for my 3-week intensive Spanish course (a final exam tomorrow that´s worth 30 percent of my grade). It´s gotten pretty tough in the last week as we´ve been trying to learn when to use which of the 3 past tenses at which times - a huge headache. Turns out every single person in class did terrible on the exam last Friday and it had to be scaled (otherwise my teacher would probably get in trouble methinks). I ended up with an 80 which seemed to be the best grade out of the 8 of us in my class. That´s something I guess. Even though I´m not at all the strongest conversationally in class, I get the grammar thing better than most - probably because I´ve always been good with it in English - so it makes me look good on paper. Unfortunately, I´m still stammering a lot when trying to talk to people face-to-face. Talking to my intercambio and my family a lot is helping though, and I ask them to correct me when I speak incorrectly.
So yeah, Barcelona tomorrow. I´m psyched to see a real Spanish city. Alicante is awesome, but it´s smaller than Boston and seems to take on the atmosphere of Old People Farm at times - probably because of the generally mild climate it has year-round. Seeing a big city like Barcelona will be a good chance to get a better grip on Spanish urban life. I shall report back on that with pictures and all that good stuff.
Speaking of pictures, I´m really gonna try to get off my ass and take some for you folks to see. A virtual tour of Alicante if you will. It was nicer weather out the last couple days, so maybe next week I´ll get a chance to snap some off.
When I get back from BCN, I´ll be starting regular classes on Monday which I´m half excited, half anxious about (I just needed to use a thesaurus to find the word anxious, an example of how screwy my language centers are getting). I think it´ll be a great challenge taking classes that are entirely in Spanish, but I´m hoping it won´t hurt my grades too much. I wish NU would take these classes as pass/fail, but then I wouldn´t get credit for my Spanish minor. I guess I´ll just need to work that much harder, but no complaints there.
And on the topic of language and all that, I´ve been reading books lately at breakneck speed. Basically when I have downtime at home, I really don´t generally feel like watching TV much because, frankly, it gets old really fast - even if it is good comprehension practice. Los Simpsons loses it´s novelty as you realize how important the original voices are to the humor (absolutely everything is dubbed in this country, but I won´t write about why in this post. It´s actually a rather interesting story). As a result, I end up reading a lot of books. I ordered a few from Amazon and am tearing through those along with some that my friend is letting me borrow. I´m wondering if reading all that well-versed English will hold me back from wrapping my head around español. Tough to say at this point. As a consolation, I´m taking a Spanish Literature class for the semester, so maybe reading well versed Spanish will counteract my English readings. Time will tell...
We got some info today about cheap classes and activities we can partake in during the semester. They have both cooking and dancing lessons, which both excite me great deal. It´d be cool to learn Spanish Salsa or Flamenco, but I also would like to learn how to cook Spanish salsa - kind of a stew/soup thing that can have all sorts of stuff in it - quite unlike salsa we´re used to. I suppose it´s possible to do both, but I don´t wanna do that at the same time. Both lessons are incredibly cheap so I´d be stupid not to take advantage. It´d be cool to come back to the States a cooking and dancing machine, although that´s obviously not a very likely outcome. Gotta shoot for the stars though, no?
Small note about Spanish food. I think mi madre fries crap a bit too much. Not that it doesn´t taste great, but it´s gotten to the point now where I´m eating less healthy here than back at home. She either pan or deep fries something at least 4 times a week. Not everybody else in the program I´ve talked to has been having the same experience as me, but a handful have. I´ve been balancing it off with a lot of fruits and veggies and I walk a ton, but my olive oil intake has increased 400% since I got here. I know olive oil is supposedly good for you, but I gotta figure there is a cut-off point somewhere before the gallon a week she uses in her cooking (not nearly as much of an exaggeration as you´d like to think, if it is one at all). I´m thinking of asking her to grill me more stuff, which she does for herself. I guess she assumes all guys like to eat fried meat all the time... then again, most guys do. Well, it´s only for 4 more months, so no big deal I suppose - just going to enjoy it while I´m here, it all tastes so good.
I´m running a bit low on things to talk about, and I really should get down to studying as I have so much of it to do tonight. No time left on the meter here to proofread, so you guys get the unpolished version. Hope it ain´t too rough around the edges. Brushing over though, it looks like this turned in to a decent entry, anyway. Good show!
Much love
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