La comida y los Estados Unidos

I didn't realize it had been a month since I updated, or that I only updated once in the month of October. I swear I'm alive, I just have a really gross cough.

I’ve made a terrible decision: I’m reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I already have a lot of grievances with America that have only been exacerbated by moving to Spain, now I have an intimate knowledge of our hideous system of processing food and destroying the American farmer (I’m still on the corn section, haven’t reached the part about obesity or the construction of a happy meal just yet; I have a lot more to get incensed over). It’s already weird to hear about the Occupy movement happening in the states and to see it on the news (Spain does a great job of reporting world news and I watch the news every night to hear the language and to know what’s going on). Clearly, I’m not happy to be going back to the United States in the midst of my generation’s first experience in fighting the man. Spain is going through its own crappy situation, to be sure. Albert, my only Spanish friend, and my host mom have explained to me that because of the economic crisis, the current party, the PSOE (the left), have no hope of being reelected. The PP (the right) is almost certainly going to be elected and Albert told me that all the social reform during Zapatero’s administration (gay marriage, pro-abortion laws, etc) is in danger. And this is already being demonstrated in microcosm in Cataluna, which is beginning to move right and take away progressive social reform.

So obviously, I’m dissatisfied with how things are going in the world and my unavoidable return to the United States. But the greatest point of contention for me is food, la comida. In Spain, food is wonderful and fresh and local and covered in aceite, olive oil. Something my group complained about in our first weeks here was how many “specialized” stores there were. There are individual stores for fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, shoes, clothes, odds and ends. Where was the Target, the Jewel, the Wal-Mart where you can find everything in one place (it’s called Corte de Ingles, but that’s another story)? Now I completely appreciate the system. My host mom goes out several times a week to pick up fresh, local ingredients for our meals; she never buys more than we need and everything she buys goes into a meal. There is a natural seasonal rotation and sometimes things aren’t available (because that’s how nature works!). All our fruits, veggies and meats come from within Spain.

My host mom is a phenomenal cook. If I were a better cook or at least more proactive, I would be learning how to prepare some of the things we eat (also, kitchen vocabulary is not my forte). Everything, absolutely everything is prepared with olive oil. The kitchen is always hot and things are cooked at an obscenely high heat. Even making myself a café con leche requires an oven mitt or pot holder to protect my dainty hands. One of the things I’ve come to love is Spanish tortilla, una mezcla de huevos (eggs), potatoes and onions, fried into a round, thick omelet-like thing. Lucky kids in my group get tortilla bocadillos (sandwiches made on french bread). Also, I’m so down with soup it’s crazy. I think I like love it here because soup is always thick, flour being used in every preparation. For lunch today we had a lentil soup with potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and this ridiculous black sausage thing. I still don’t really know what it is, but it involves black rice, some kind of meat, is shaped like a tuber and looks disgusting. It’s the best thing I’ve ever had.

I don’t mean to ramble about food, but the fact is returning to the Knox cafeteria is going to kill me (along with the Midwestern winter). If I’ve ever cared about my health, I would be learning how to cook and figuring out how to eat like a Mediterranean Spaniard in America. Of course, I’ll have to learn to prepare a lot less than what my host mom serves up on a daily basis. I’m a constant source of disappointment to her because I never eat enough. This means that after a full bowl of soup, a salad and some kind of fried meat, I couldn’t possible eat anymore. This also means that I don’t love the food. Quite the opposite and I try to make this clear every day, if I could eat like this for the rest of my life, I would.  

Los Pirineos

To the five people who check this blog, sorry I don't update a lot. Interesting things do happen to me, I'm just lazy. What I need to do is have regular, small updates about all the random stuff that interests me and larger, sporadic updates about major events. Maybe I'll stick to that. Probs not.

Two weeks ago (wow, already two weeks ago!) we went to the Pyrenees. We stayed in a hostel in a small village called Monentartro (mas o menos), close to the city of Sort. Driving in the mountains is an experience I don't want to repeat anytime soon. I'm already afraid of heights and the constant twists, turns and bumps made everyone carsick. There are a couple picture on Facebook where I have my hat pulled over my eyes. This was because I was close to losing it during one ride. My wonderful friends Laura and Becky made fun of me. And took pictures.

On our first in the mountains, we went on a bike ride. Our wonderful hosts at the hostel, Imma y Cesar, also doubled as guides. Imma took us biking and showed us the sites of farmhouses once used to harbor Spaniards escaping over the Pyrenees during the Civil War. There were lots of mountain animals, enormous cows and horses (bred for eating) and sheep. The best part was riding full speed back down the mountain. From there we went to a museum that showed the kinds of houses and ways of life in the Pyrenees during the 30s and 40s. Very rustic, even for those people with money. On the second day Cesar took us on a hike. We were meant to climb near the top of the mountains, but the weather was not permitting and we were poorly dressed for the whole weekend (none of us had thought to bring sturdy winter clothes). We backtracked down the mountain and hiked in a nice climate. Cesar took us to another little hostel, seemingly off the beaten path, where we had awesome soup. Seemed like chicken broth, garbanzo beans and every meat imaginable. Next we went on a tour of old bunkers built as a defense during WWII to try to keep out all the refugees streaming into Spain and possible divert an attack from Hitler. On our last day we went rafting on a river outside of Sort. We took up two boats and our raft got the crazy guide who flipped us over several times and convinced us to commander the other boat. We wore hardcore wetsuits that protected us from the water, which was very cold. Our last meal was at a great restaurant in the mountains which served us things like octopus and veal carpaccio.

Like I said, I'll try to be better about updating. I'm having a great time and my Spanish is starting to improve (because I actually try to talk now). I eat way too much because all the food here is wonderful and it's going to be hard to leave when the time comes. Barcelona is amazing.

Merce

This weekend was Merce, a huge festival in Barcelona. In the past, the celebrations usually last for a week but because of the economic crisis, Merce was shortened to four days, Thursday the 22nd to Sunday the 25th. There´s a lot to do, both traditional activitives and performances, and everything is free. In general, music and concerts were concentrated in the Old Quarter or Barrio Gotic, theatrical performances in Montjuic and dance shows in the Parque de la Cuitadella. I never made it to Montjuic and overall, I think I did very little, but it was a wonderful experience. I´m still amazed by the idea of a city party, totally free, that is for everyone to enjoy. I don´t think we have anything that can compare in the United States. There are huge outdoor concerts and county fairs, but these things aren´t free and they aren´t created with the intention of bringing together an entire city in celebration. That is something that Spain does well. And everything was crowded.

On Thursday, Aimee, Raluca and I went to our free soccer game, somewhere on the outskirts of Barcelona at the end of Linea 5 (my train line). We had great seats, close to the ground behind one of the goals, but even better than that we were right next to the cheering section, which carried on songs and chants for the entire game and never sat down. We tried to catch some of the words and we learned that a shrill whistle is used for negative things, like a bad call by a ref, and its okay to flip off the other team´s goalie. It wasn´t a Barça match (like Knox would get us seats in Camp Nou), but it was RCD Espanyol, apparently the oldest (or one of the oldest) futbol teams in Spain and the first to have all their players be of Spanish origin. They played Getafe, a small Madrid team, and won 1-0 in overtime. Coming back, we went to Plaça de Sant Jaume and Av. de la Catedral to catch the concerts there. One was world music, the other was flamenco. Aimee and I attempted to follow the dancers around us at the flamenco concert, with varying results (I can´t dance, Aimee can). Friday I went back to Pl. de Sant Juame for the muestra de dragones y bestias de fuego. A parade of homemade dragons and demons paraded through the crowds at Jaume, exiting from the Government Building of Barcelona. The dragons spouted flames from fireworks attached to their horns, mouths and talons. Between dragons were small drumline groups, and if I were a child in Barcelona, I would aspire to be a drumliner, they were so cool. Afterwords, we treked out to the Parque de la Cuitadella for El Lago de los Cisnes (Swan Lake). It was basic ballet, but it took place (in parts) on a pond in the park and in the monument surrounding the main fountain.

Saturday was rainy, so I didn´t venture out for the gigantes in the morning. That night I met Areanna, Erik and Natalia for the exhibicion pirotecnica en la playa. It was good fireworks display and we managed to get close enough that each boom was deafening. It began to rain again at the very end, so we escaped to a pizza place toward the end of Barceloneta and split a pizza and vino tinto. Sunday I went out early for the castelles y sardanas, the two events I had really been looking forward to, back in the Pl. de Sant Jaume and Av. de la Catedral with Aimee and Areanna. Castelles didn´t go so well, because we were too far away to see well, standing in the direct sunlight and I almost passed out from dehydration. We managed to see a little, people stacking themselves two or three stories high, with small children scrambling to the top, before we escaped to some shade. The sardana is a traditional Catalunyan dance, in which dancers form a circle, hold hands, and dance in a very measured way. Aimee and I again tried to follow along, and it was a little easier than flamenco, because its slower paced and repetative. It reminded me of Israeli folk dancing at camp. That night I went with Laura and Kevin to the Pl. Espanya for the fireworks and music show. This was definietly more impressive than the fireworks at the beach, because the display was timed to the music (mostly American pop and classics) and went on for a good fourty minutes. From there we returned to Parque de la Cuitadella because Laura wanted to see Swan Lake, but we walked, which took about an hour (less, if we had been paying attention to where we were going).

The last part of my adventure was getting on the wrong nitbus. We had assumed that the metro would stay open later for Merce festivities, but this wasn´t true at all, so after Swan Lake we headed to Pl. Catalunya, the central location for every nitbus. I´d used the nitbus a few times, so I was sure I knew what I was doing. However, we ended up on the opposite end of Pl. Catalunya from where I catch my nitbus (N3 Collblanc to Torre Melinda), so I got on the N3 going the opposite way (to Montcada). I didn´t realize I was on the wrong bus because it was so full I couldn´t look out the window and see which streets we were on. I can tell the correct route because it´s the same one that my regular bus takes. When the bus had finally cleared out, I realized I was very far from home. We were about to get on some kind of highway or expressway. I got off there and ran across the street to the N3 station going in the other direction and waited about 20 minutes, at 2 in the morning, completely alone, for my bus to come. I wasn´t feeling afraid so much as stupid, because I should have figured out sooner that I was on the wrong bus. By the end of the night, it had taken me an extra hour to get home.

There´s a lot coming up in the next couple of weeks. Tonight is the beginning of Rosh Hashana, and unfortunately, I completely dropped the ball with that. I was hoping to find a group of students to celebrate with, and Toni did manage to locate a group that seems geared toward youth and welcomes international students, but I didn´t have enough time to contact them about services. Hopefully, I can join them for a Shabbat service in the next two months. I have been to church, but that was bizarre experience for me and probably my only instance of culture shock. I think it´s because I understand what´s happening and the traditions and technically the words are the same, but its a different language and people behave differently. One of these days I´ll go to mass at one of the huge old churches in the Gothic Quarter. Tomorrow, we´re going to see a play and Friday is my birthday (don´t ask me what I´m doing, Aimee is planning the whole thing and will probably only tell me what metro stop to meet at). Next week, on the 6th, we head off to our excursion in the Pyrennes. In the middle of that is Yom Kippur on the 8th and I´m considering fasting (not completely fasting, Mom. Smaller meals kind of fasting). When I return, it will be to an almost empty house. For the past couple of weeks, besides mi madre espanyola, there is her son, his wife, their dog, and the Frenchman. The Frenchman (as I call him) is a student in another group for Europeans (probably Erasmus, which is a big one, although I haven´t asked). We get along alright and he spends most of his time on the internet. But when I get back from the mountains, everyone will have left and it will be me and mi madre. Hopefully by then I won´t be so timida, shy, as she calls me. I try to talk, but I can´t always find the words I´m looking for and I end up saying nothing. My biggest fear is that I´ll return from Spain with only marginally better Spanish. I can keep up in my classes but its the regular conversations with others that still stump me. I need to be menos timida y mas fuerte.

TMB

Walking, I live an hour away from the University of Barcelona and el centro. The one time I did attempt to walk, I went straight up Gran Via to the Placa Espanya and Carrer de la Creu Coberta until I finally reached Collblanc. It was hot and tiring and wouldn’t have been worth it if it wasn’t for the Place Espanya. It’s a huge roundabout surrounded by enormous buildings and I will have to go back sometime.

What’s great about my neighborhood is the plethora of options for transportation. I live about three blocks from the Collblanc metro station (blue line or L5), there are bus and nitbus stations right on my block and around the corner is the tram. I have now taken about every form of transport. I usually take the bus (number 54) to school because I can look out the window. It takes Collblanc to Av. de Madrid to Muntaner (approximately). The metro is faster, but hotter and usually has more people. I have to transfer to the red line/L1 at Placa de Sants to make it to the University. The tram can’t take me all the way to school, but it goes to Diagonal, which bisects Barcelona. The tram is certainly the fastest and cleanest of all the options. When I went to Tibidabo last weekend, I had to transfer to L7, part of FGC, a line of underground trams that fall under Catalunya jurisdiction. I’ve also now taken the nitbus, the boon of the late night partiers, which starts running after the rest of TMB have shut down for the night. The N3 gets me right to my block. 

I took the nitbus last night because I went to the Harlem Jazz Club (yeah, really) to see a flamenco performance. It was a really good time and was much more successful than seeing that incredibly unsettling Almodovar film earlier in the day. Afterwards, we broke into two groups, some people going off to a discoteca to see a dubstep battle, the rest of us opting for tapas and sangria (I picked tapas). When I got home, it was just me and the stray cats.

Tibidabo

Something I was discussing with Laura, one of the girls in my group, is how we feel like we've regressed all of a sudden. For about a week, we felt that our Spanish was steadily improving, and now it's as though we've taken a step back, or possibly we've hit a wall in our knowledge. It's frustrating, because the desire to communicate (and communicate well) is very strong, but our comprehension is limited. I worry that I'll never improve beyond a certain, still very basic point. Of course I'll keep working, listening, and speaking, but I do get down on myself sometimes.

On Saturday, Aimee and I went to Tibidabo, a mountain in Barcelona with some very nice houses and an amusement park sitting on top of it. We took an underground tram and two more trams to the top. Thank goodness for Aimee, or I would have stopped at the third tram. The amusement park is pretty basic, a stripped down kiddy land. What you go for is the views, or the fact that you're on a roller coaster on the side of a mountain. There is a church at the top, which had earlier hosted a wedding and was still covered in rose petals. It was a good trip, not too touristy and very picturesque. Today we had our first classes, which for me was Contemporary Spanish Novels. Tomorrow I have Art and Grammar. Looks like I'm in school again.

I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I'm starting Cloud Atlas.

La familia y el internet

I'm currently blogging through Google Espana and I'm stealing internet from the hotel several blocks away. Cool.

On Sunday I moved in with my family. I live on the Aviguda de Xile, en un piso (like an apartment) on the 11th floor. From our balcony, I can see mountains and directly below us is a sporting club, and there are tennis courts, soccer fields and an area for horseback riding. Our neighborhood is mas tranquilo del centro, the area where we stayed in our hotel. It's a little far to walk to the University from my apartment, so tomorrow I will buy a T-Jove, the 90 day transport ticket for students under 25.

My host mother is Isobel and she's very sweet. I appreciate how much she talks to me, even though I was too nervous to talk back in the beginning. I'm already getting better, giving short answers to questions instead of just saying "Si si si vale" to everything, and I've initiated a few conversations. She's horrified by how "little" I eat. To put that in context, I can eat a who plate of food, and she'll be concerned when I don't want more. A quick side note on food, I have tried new things. I ate fried eggs for dinner the other day, and I've had a couple tapas with los frutas del mar. It helps that many things are fried.

With us in our piso are Jose Luis, Leah y Gea. Jose Luis is Isobel's son and Leah is his wife. Leah is a 2008 graduate of Knox College (clearly, Barcelona is the place to find a husband). They're both very nice and it helps to have Leah around to translate sometimes, but they're both out of the house a lot. They have a home farther away, but they moved in with Isobel because Jose Luis was having trouble commuting to and from the city. Gea es la perra, our dog. She is technically Jose Luis' dog, but from what I can tell, Isobel takes care of her. Gea has a lot of energy because she is from the mountains and produces more red blood cells (this was explained to me half in English and half in Spanish, so I doubt I'm completely correct). She's a handful, but she's que guapa (interestingly, I'm called "guapa" too).

I'm very happy. I get frustrated when there's a word I don't know or when I've spoken incorrectly, but I feel like I'm getting better. It's a matter of constantly forcing myself to listen and speak, so that the words stick in my head. It may be interesting to note that I had trouble with my English in this post and I often started words in Spanish. Maybe one day I'll write an entire post in Spanish without meaning to.

Dia de Gaudi

Our orientation in Spain can generally be marked by walking and eating. Today we explored the Old Quarter surrounding our hotel and the Mercat Boqueria, a large outdoor market off Las Ramblas. We had lunch in a restaurant on a side street and then visited La Padrera, the Gaudi museum/former residence. From there we took a bus to Parque Guell, another Gaudi area, an enormous park covered in mosaics, fountains, overlooks and trails. We climbed to one of its highest points, which features a cross on a stone hill, and has views of most of the city. We continued through the streets of Gracia, a Barcelona neighborhood, seemingly in circles, until we stopped for dinner in a paella restaurant.

Tomorrow we move in with our families. I’m nervous (again) because I know this is when things get real. So far I’ve managed to follow Toni’s castellano and string together a few sad sentences of my own, but I’ve mostly communicated in English with my peers. Tomorrow I need to man up and integrate myself with the language. My worry is that I won’t understand my host mother. While I have a basic education in Spanish, I have yet to develop a good ear for it. What is a clear sentence to others is one long, confused word to me. I can manage a few context clues, but that’s all. I can only pray for una madre who will be patient with me and allow me a few weeks to get this under control. If I still can’t comprehend most of the language I hear by the end of September, I may as well go home.