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!