Tiny Towns and Torso-Binding

The past two weekends have been filled with pueblo-viewing. I've been to Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, and most of the other major touristy cities in Spain. I've seen the typical sites. Now's my time to take advantage of being in Extremadura, which is rather off the beaten track and home to a vast number of tiny villages in the midst of rolling hills and farmland, where everyone knows everyone, and neighbors spend weekends drinking cañas (beers) together in the plazas. Villages are very close-knit, as only recently have people started traveling and moving more around Spain. Each has its own, distinct accent and its own, distinct traditions. One of the teachers at my school, for instance, mentioned that in her pueblo, a springtime tradition is for people to chase each other, spraying each other with water. Like many of the people I've met, she lives in the city of Cáceres but also has a house in a pueblo in the province of Cáceres which she shares with her parents and siblings.

Two weekends ago, I went to a private student, Honorio's house in the village of Mirabel, where we had lunch with some of his friends. We feasted on cocido, a typical Spanish meal consisting of noodles in broth, cabbage, a delicious garbanzo stew with potatoes, and various meats. (The latter I politely declined). Stomachs (and, in my unfortunate case, bladder) full to the brim, we set out on a long hike amid fields of cork trees (they get stripped of their cork every ten years and must have been recently-stripped because they looked quite naked) eventually making it to El Padre Santo (the Father Saint), a massive, revered cork tree, money-maker through the ages. We also saw a castle from afar (there are so many random castles around Extremadura, no one gives them much of a second thought) but it was high up on a mountaintop, so we didn't give it a visit.

Last weekend, my roommate, Luisa, took me to her village, Villanueva de la Vera. On the way, we stopped at a neighboring village, Valverde de la Vera (population: 618), a tiny town with a tiny castle and streams of water running down the cobblestone streets. There, the tradition is for men to make deals with God. They'll say, for instance, "God, if you heal my cousin from his disease, I'll do empalao for the next three years." Empalao entails one's arms and torso getting tied extremely tightly to a wooden cross. Weights hang from the arms, and two swords are stuck behind the cross. Women who wish to participate simply bear wooden crosses on their backs but aren't tied up. There is one day a year when those who choose to subject themselves to this tortuous activity march for an hour around the streets of Valverde, bowing down to all the crosses in the village. Luisa and I went to a museum dedicated to this ritual, where a girl about my age walked us enthusiastically through every last detail. She clearly had plenty of time to spare, as it was probably a matter of days or maybe weeks until the next museum visitors would arrive. I found the whole matter rather gruesome, but later I met a friend of Luisa's who'd participated. He assured me it was deeply rewarding and the best kind of pain possible. To each his/her own...

Me & the Tiny Castle in Valverde

Luisa's village was very similar to Valverde, although slightly bigger (population: 2,163). We had a lunch of lentils and tortilla española (eggs and potatoes cooked together) with her parents, who'd both lived their whole lives in the village. We then embarked on a trek with Luisa's friends to see the gargantas ('garganta' means 'throat' but only in Northern Extremadura does it also mean 'stream flowing from the top of a mountain.' I like to imagine these streams are the throats of mountains). We saw the areas where the gargantas were waterfalls...quite spectacular! Dinner consisted of five small plates of unusual food combinations (lentils with avocado, for instance) in a new, hipster restaurant that seemed extremely out of place in this very traditional village. The following day was filled with sight-seeing (seeing colorful and charming but often dilapidated abodes) and of course, drinking cañas for hours in the plaza, where everyone gathered after mass, and where old men strummed guitars. By the time we finally had lunch, I was so hungry I no longer had an appetite, especially when others ordered calamari and it came out in huge, swishing, slimy chunks. I couldn't bear to eat my trucha (trout) which looked not quite dead on my plate, with its head still on, so I had to awkwardly ask for a doggy bag, something Spaniards hardly ever do. But other than that, it was a delightful experience seeing the more hidden (but probably more authentic) side of Spain.

The Villanueva Architecture

It was definitely a welcome distraction from current aggravations and grievances with teachers. (They've suddenly decided they can no longer allow me to carpool with them unless I pay, although it explicitly states in my contract that those in my position should never be expected to pay.) So I've been trying to get in touch with the government to see if they'll pay the teachers, but of course, the easiest thing for them to do is simply ignore me. So that's been quite fun and headache-inducing! But the kids continue to be cute, at least. One of them sends me a daily song on watsapp, another tries her hardest to pick me up every time I see her even though she's only in fourth grade and very small, two others have given me plastic bracelets they made (I don't know about America, but they're all the preteen rage in Spain), and another drew me a beautiful picture. (I chose to ignore the fact that she spent all class making it instead of doing her work.) And I had a lovely time on Monday night with Caroline, eating montaditos (mini sandwiches) and drinking chupitos (shots). Sometimes a few shots are necessary on a Monday night to get the week rolling, especially if there's a drunk woman by your side, caressing your arm and assuring you she'll do no harm. (Yes, this happened.) So minus the carpool woes, I'm having a marvelous time with my Spain bros.

Bones and Banks

I've been a bit less enthused with life overall in the past month than I usually am...I think everything is starting to become too routine, and I'm forgetting embrace the novelty of being here in Spain. So I'll use this blog post to remind myself of pleasant/bizarre/worthwhile occurrences that have happened in the past month since I last wrote. (I know... it's been a whole month--I've become absolutely horrid at being a devoted blogger.)

1. My friend, Cady and I wandered the meadows of Cáceres, ending up on a hill covered in soil that was so spongy I felt like my body barely weighed a thing and I was on the moon. We may as well have been on the moon being that out of nowhere, we came upon a vast array of ancient-looking ruins covered in graffiti of giant insects...there was also an abandoned toilet adorning the site (quite a mystery, as there was surely no plumbing in the ruins). And the cherry on the cake was a lone bone, splayed out in the midday sun, probably from the thigh of a cow. It was so old and sun-worn it had the texture of wood. Without a second thought, I brought it back to the apartment, scrubbed it off a bit, and left it on the terrace to dry. Of course, upon spotting it, my roommate and her friends thought I was insane, but the plus to being a foreigner is you can blame everything your culture. (I assured them it's very normal in America to bring interesting bones home.)

2. I was told to go see the Vostell museum in Malpartida, a neighboring town. Of course, I decided to go on a Monday, the one day it's closed. So I'll have to make another trip back. But luckily, Malpartida itself happens to be a delightful place. It's home to a glistening lake surrounded by wind-carved rocks and stray cows. So, my friend, Alberto and I had an enjoyable stroll and staring contest with the cows.

At the Lake in Malpartida!

 3. I was lucky enough to re-visit the dazzling Lisbon during a long weekend with dear Caroline. The highlight night revolved around Indian food and banks. We did try the traditional Portuguese cuisine, but when we saw there was an Indian restaurant a foot from our hostel, we just couldn't resist. (Spain is extremely lacking on the Indian restaurant front, so we'd been feeling rather deprived.) When we'd temporarily satiated our desire for Indian goodness (I say "temporarily" because we had to return the following night) we both had to find our respective banks to get out some cash, and despite it being a Friday night, even the main the streets were quite empty. There was something super freeing about meandering through the night with the streets to ourselves, coming upon a grand monument gleaming under streetlights every few blocks or so. We joke that that was our Indian food and banking night since that's all we really did...but in many ways I preferred it to a night of partying. It was a way to peacefully take in the city without dealing with the hustle and bustle of the day.

One of the 43 Comparsas

4. After our three nights in Portugal, Caroline and I set off for two nights in Badajoz to witness the famous carnival. The carnival lasts five days, and people even get school off for it because having fun is high on Spain's list of priorities. But we decided two days would be enough carnival for us. I wouldn't consider myself a carnival-type. Parades and costumes seem to excite others more than me. In fact, they tend to depress me because they usually entail having to be around loads of happy, giddy people...so then, of course, I wonder why I'm not as happy and giddy as everyone else... But this time I genuinely enjoyed the spectacle because it wasn't just fun and silliness that I can't relate to (being the extremely serious person I am). It was actually quite artistic, involving lots of "comparsas" or groups of percussionists and dancers decked out in homemade costumes that had been designed and crafted especially for the event. Comparsas apparently practice for years together, and it shows. The dancers are perfectly in-sync with each other and the music, and they move gracefully despite their huge, dazzling costumes. This parade in no way resembles the rhythm-less, commercially-motivated parades we're used to seeing in the U.S. where people with fake smiles smeared across their faces wear drooping Mickey Mouse costumes and trumpets blare the same three songs on repeat.

5. But nothing against trumpets, of course. I recently saw an excellent trumpet performance at my second Olivenza show. (Olivenza is the Extremaduran band that Caroline and I are obsessed with, which I mentioned in a previous post.) Olivenza, despite being a wonderful band in my opinion, isn't very well known, so Caroline and I enjoy singing their songs when we're out on the streets, knowing no one will recognize them. My favorite part to sing is the trumpet solo from their song "Antarctica." After singing it for a month in anticipation of their next concert, it was quite satisfying to hear the real thing last weekend.

Well, that's that. Time to defrost some freezer wonders and then head to bed!

Pigs and Salty Babies

It's been one of those weeks...the rain hasn't let up. My umbrella broke due to the forceful winds that often come along with the rain here...and maybe due to the fact that it was 3 euros and tiny. I walk many-a-mile every day so I'm perpetually drenched. Therefore, I've felt very toad-like recently. I just realized I've even started wearing more greens and browns...perhaps this is me subconsciously trying to embrace my new identity. If it's something I gotta face, it might as well be something I embrace!

But yeah, just one of those weeks. I made a nice presentation on animals for the first graders, complete with google images of domestic and wild animals and videos of creatures dancing together. And then, of course, I arrived, ready to present, but the mouse was malfunctioning and clicking every which way without me touching it, skipping through my slides with great fervor and then bringing up random pictures of children eating, pictures that weren't even part of the presentation. So that was a failure. Then my friend Antonio tells me he's planning to visit me...but of course, a few days later, decides he was just kidding. Not visiting after all! So that was cool. (Sarcasm.) And how wonderful that tomorrow is good old Valentine's Day, which always seems to arrive at exactly the right time of year. (Sarcasm, again.)

But I just like complaining. Seriously, over all, life is swell. Can't complain about being in Spain. And I'd take the rain over the freezing weather any day. And back in Northampton, I doubt I'd see a big, black pig trotting in the middle of the highway, the seemingly-unfazed owner following behind. (I was with some fellow teachers when this happened...none of them seemed to think much of it. But yeah, that's Extremaduran life for ya. Here in the middle of nowhere, pigs are on the loose.) And of course, I very much appreciate the kids, despite their rowdiness. Really quite a charming, hilarious bunch. Recent gems:

(My 11-year-old student mentioned she likes to draw.)
Me: What do you like to draw?
Her: Mostly just human brains. (Proceeds to draw a brain for me.)

A three-year-old girl: Where's your sister?
Me: I don't have one.
Her: Yes! You do! I saw her on TV!

14-year-old student: You look a lot like Taylor Swift.
Me: Really? I've never heard that before.
Her: Well, the main difference is your eyes are more Asian than hers. You have very Asian eyes.

6-year-old student: How long have you been learning English?
Me: Since I was a baby.
Her: Wow, you must have been a really smart baby.

I've also learned some strange, new phrases recently, which is always fun. Maybe if I spread the word, they'll become phrases in America, seeing as I'm incredibly influential, and thousands of people are fixated on my blog:

1. Me comería un coto con patatas.
Literal translation: I would eat a calf with potatoes.
Meaning: I'm super hungry.

2.  En negrita.
Literal translation: In black.
Meaning: In bold. (In reference to typed words...as if words that aren't in bold aren't also black...?)

3. Qué salado (pronounced "salow") es el bebé, niño, perrito, etc.
Literal translation: How salty the baby/child/puppy is.
Meaning:What a cute baby/child/puppy.

4. Qué rico es el bebé, niño, perrito, etc.
Literal translation: How rich the baby/child/puppy is.
Meaning: What a cute baby/child/puppy.

5. Meterte en un rollo.
Literal translation: Put yourself in a roll.
Meaning: Get yourself in a sticky/dangerous/boring situation.

So despite the rain, malfunctioning mouse, and dread for Valentine's day, thanks to the amusing lil 'uns,  funny phrases, and, of course, the pig-spotting, my week has been enjoyable nonetheless.

Two Young Civilians in Sevilla

Just about two years ago, during my Granada life, I went to Sevilla for only a few hours with my dear peer, Ally. Last weekend, I had the fortune of returning to this enchanting land with another dear peer, Caroline, for two and a half days! Thus, after just a bitty taste of Sevilla the first time, I got a good-sized mouthful the second time.

And speaking of mouthfuls, I'm embarrassed (but secretly proud) to admit that the first mouthful I had in this charming city, known for its delicious, Andalucian food, was a brownie at Peggy Sue's, an embodiment of what Spaniards would imagine an American restaurant from the 60s to be like. It was complete with jukeboxes that didn't actually work; a menu consisting of burgers, fries, brownies, ice cream, and not much more; piercingly pink walls; and "typical" American drinks (two different types of Fanta were on the list...who drinks Fanta in America?) I felt super self-conscious sitting there, jabbering away in American English. I wanted to reassure the waiter, "I DO eat Spanish food, too! It's just hard to resist brownies sometimes..."

So after our brownie indulgence, we went to bed at a reasonable hour so as to energize up for the big day of tourist fun. Our room consisted of two beds, a triangular coat-closet, a sort of make-shift bathroom that was clearly forced into the room after its completion (there was basically a toilet and sink shoved into the corner with a plastic wall surrounding them), and there was no heating, so I wore two sweaters, two pairs of leggings, two pairs of socks, and a jacket to bed, and woke up shivering in the night. But on the bright side, it was only seven euros a night, very centrally-located, the people working there were cute and friendly, and they did give us a heater for the other two nights.

Caroline is Unimpressed with the Bathroom

I won't get too detailed on the tourist attractions because no one honestly likes reading extensive descriptions of other people's vacations, but I'll say that Sevillians (I want to write it as "Civilians") are known around Spain for being arrogant and proud. I can't say I encountered any arrogance, but there was definitely a lot of pride to be seen. For instance, we went to two flamenco shows at La Anselma and La Carbonería (which were wonderful, by the way, but I did, embarrassingly enough, fall asleep in the middle of one of them, only because I was super tired to begin with) and over half the songs were about Sevilla and how wonderful it is. But I can see why--there's definitely a lot to be proud of: There's the Alcázar, an astounding castle (one of those you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it places); the beautiful cathedral with the Giralda tower that gives magnificent views of the city; tasty food (we ate at lots of places in addition to Peggy Sue's); a vibrant flamenco culture; some nice art; the almost surreal Plaza de España, which seems to appear out of nowhere; and a grand, old bullring (well, this is a source of pride for many, although I can't say I would personally be too proud being in a city that hosts bull-torture, but that's just me).

The Alcázar. Honestly, just go there. Way more impressive in real life.

Trying to Soak up the Alcázar's Glory

The Giralda Tower

In Plaza de España there were plaques dedicated to each community in Spain. Obviously I got excited to see good old Granada there, my favorite place in all of Spain (but Sevilla does fall closely after!)

 On our last day, we had to leave but there was no one at the desk, so we went through the gate, locked it up, and threw the keys through the gate along with a note that said "gracias." But of course, the second the keys were out of reach, I realized my backback was still in the hostel. So then we had to stand there, waiting like morons. Shortly after, a woman who works there returned, but this is Spain we're talking about, so even though she works there, of COURSE she didn't have a key. I stood there, guarding Caroline's bag, while she and Caroline walked around in search of some sort of rod/pole/stick to fish out the keys. A neighbor kindly lent us his broom, but it was about an inch too short. So we stood there, helplessly eying the keys, until a fellow hostel-stayer finally appeared in the lobby and let us in. After that, we had just enough time to go to a history of Spain and the Americas museum before heading to the bus station to return to Cáceres.

The week passed by without anything particularly outstanding occurrences, just the usual: Frustration at speaking to a classroom of rowdy youngins and feeling like I'm talking to myself, and dopamine highs when kids remember words I've taught them, comment on how much they enjoyed a class, or give me hugs.

Yesterday was a lounge-in-bed-and-eat-cereal type of day (very necessary after nonstop movement all week), and today was supposed to be an 18-kilometer hike with my roommate and 400+ other hikers in a mountainous town an hour and a half away that's filled with streams and "gargantas" (which means "throats" but also "streams that descend from snowy mountaintops" in Spanish) but when my roommate and I got up in the dark at 6:45am and saw that there was an 100 percent chance of rain for the whole day, we were like "uh, never mind, and went back to bed, losing the six euros we'd paid but gaining four hours of sleep in our warm, rainless rooms. Then, so as to get out of  the house and feel slightly less guilty about our laziness, walked to the ancient part of Cáceres and peered at the pretty view from the tower. But the intense rain and wind made me super glad we'd opted out of the six and a half-hour hike.

The Blog Has Been Revived at Long Last

I'm well aware that negligence of travel blogs is a serious crime that can't be mitigated by even the best of excuses. However, I'll nonetheless provide you with a few explanations in the desperate hope that they will, perhaps, instill in you an inkling of understanding:

1. Winter break happened. The first half was filled with Madrid-Toledo-Segovia-Barcelona fun with my mum and the rest was filled with a whirlwind of family and friend reunions back in good old Northampton. There wasn't much time to sleep and feed myself, let alone feed words to this here blog. But yeah, I had a truly terrific time with Mother, getting to know Madrid and realizing it has much more character than I'd thought last time I was there, oggling at the fairytale cities of Toledo and Segovia (especially Segovia's Alcázar, which is so utterly stunning that even Walt Disney himself based his classic palace on it), and walking through the dreamy bizarreness of Gaudí´s creations in Barcelona (most notably, for me, the roof of la Pedrera, which is an otherwordly land of melting marshmallow men). And going home was just so excellent. I love Spain, but I must say, I wouldn't have minded being home a tad longer. Seeing my friends and family so briefly was like eating a bite of an apple pie and then having the rest of the piece snatched right out of my hands. (But luckily I did, at least, get to have Mum's delish apple pie on numerous occasions...and was able to eat entire pieces.)

Marshmallow Men at La Pedrera

2. Once I got back to Spain I had to deal with a) suitcase loss at airport (but it finally turned up) b) lack of hot water and heat in apartment and c) The Big Move #2 a week after I got back. (Yes, I moved. Yet again. I felt awkward in apartment #2 because my roommates only seemed to want to talk to me in order to tell me what to do. Luckily, new apartment is beautiful, I have a shower with water that comes out of the ceiling and walls, and, most importantly, my flatmate, Luisa, is an absolute delight.) But yeah, going through that whole process didn't leave me much blog time. And the one con to the new flat is it's super far from everything. I spend 3-4 hours a day walking, I eat my meals in a less-than-leisurely-fashion, and I'm basically always on the go...so again, not much blog time. But overall, life is much preferable these days, and I get exercise built right into my day! (Thank God for podcasts...the info in my ears keeps my walks a good deal more interesting than they would be otherwise...NPR's "Snap Judgements," "The Moth," and "Stuff You Should Know" are among my favorites, but the list is quite long.)

3. The writing that I do spend some time on these days involves a story about a girl who goes to Spain (who knows where I got that idea from...) and cover letters for writing programs this summer. The dear blog has thus been overshadowed by other narratives. (Sorry baby blog! No offense intended!)

So yeah, those are my (less than satisfactory, perhaps) excuses. Moving on to the highlights of my recent Spanish experiences:

1. Two recent trips with Caroline, one to visit Mérida again (but unfortunately on our last visit we'd seen all the famous tourist attractions, and this time we were kind of left scavenging for somewhat decent sights) and to Badajóz, where we had a rainy but fun night with our assortment of pals. Some of such pals also visited us these past few weekends, which was delightful. One night we went to a club without a clue that it was salsa night...we kinda just stood on the side, gaping at the super gifted dancers gallop gracefully across the floor until some people who worked at the club forced us to dance. My skills were, to put it gently...sub-par.

2. Seeing Olivenza, an Extremaduran-Portuguese band whose CD I bought after the show (I let Caroline do the talking during the CD-purchase, as being near the band members made me rather bashful) and I've now memorized all the songs...soo gooooood.

Olivenza

3. Seeing "The Book Thief." It was so entrancing and beautiful I didn't even fixate, as I normally do, on the strangeness of Spanish dubbing, or even really notice the absurdity of blond kids speaking Spanish in Holocaust-stricken Germany. (But you should read the book first--it's wonderful, as well.)

4. Teaching poetry to a pair of remarkably intelligent brothers. I have to say, I find this much more engaging than attempting to silence classrooms of perpetually-boisterous youth. In general, my private classes are much more my style. As much as I want to stay in Spain longer, I, unlike many of my peers, am not going to renew my position here since the experience has confirmed my lack of passion for classroom teaching. However, I'm continuing to ponder fields in which I can help people one-on-one.

Spain is Strange!

Now that my first semester is coming to a close, I feel I've been here long enough to provide a few credible remarks on some of the stranger aspects of Spain and its inhabitants.

-First of all, dipping cookies in coffee/milk/hot chocolate isn't weird... it's quite delicious, in fact. And it's not just done in Spain. Lots of Americans do it, too. The difference is that Spaniards are much more dependent on dipping-morsels. They simply DO NOT drink these beverages without dipping something in them. Never, since I've been here, have I seen a Spaniard just pick up a cup of coffee and drink it, without a hunk of carbohydrates to go with it. And if they don't happen to have a cookie at hand, a piece of bread, or even a sandwich, appears to do the trick. I'm not kidding. I've seen my roommate break off a piece of her baguette (with pate on it!) and dunk it straight into her hot chocolate for breakfast. I've seen an old man at a cafe let part of his ham sandwich go swimming in his coffee. (Yes, go swimming in his coffee. Not only do people dunk baked goods into beverages, they often completely let them go--they submerge them entirely, allowing disintegration to occur so the beverages take on a disturbingly lumpy texture).

-When finished with one's coffee or tapa or whatever at a cafe/restaurant, it is customary to throw one's napkin on the floor. Maybe this is just an Extremaduran thing because I never noticed it in Granada. But on my first day in Cáceres, my friend Javi suggested going to a restaurant called el Aljibe. When I looked in and saw that paper napkins littered the floor like large, dirty snowflakes, I asked if maybe we could go somewhere else. He assured me that all restaurants have napkins covering the floors--we'd find nowhere better. Sure enough, I soon found out that all restaurants do indeed sport charming memorabilia of former customers... honestly, it's as if they neglect sweeping in order to show off how many customers they've had that day. Although at this point I'm pretty much used to the look of the napkin-covered floors, I still haven't allowed myself to take part in it. I've had too many years of being told littering is wrong to allow my hand to release a used napkin right onto the floor. Besides, it's just as easy to simply leave it on the table...

-Spain is a very uniform country. In terms of food and religion, this is particularly evident. Over 70% of Spaniards are Catholic (although few are actually observant). Everyone eats Spanish food, which is basically just ham cooked in different ways and some seafood thrown in occasionally (and this isn't a problem for Jews and Muslims, since there are none). Besides the occasional Chinese restaurant, there is no variety here--it's all Spanish food. Being a Jew and a vegetarian, I'm quite a rarity (although at this point I can't really call myself a vegetarian since I've not really had a choice but to be lax with my eating habits).  In fact, I don't think many Spaniards even know what Jews or vegetarians are. When I did a presentation on Hanukkah at one of my schools, the teacher explained to the students that Judaism is another sect of Christianity in which you celebrate Hanukkah rather than Christmas. And when I've asked for vegetarian tapas at restaurants, I've been given tapas that just have little bits of ham in them, as if being a vegetarian simply means you eat LESS meat...that little bits of ham here and there don't count.

-Spain is so uniform in its eating habits that even the small details are consistent across families. I've eaten in a fair number of houses, now, and at each one, fruit and yogurt are offered after lunch and dinner. If you have fruit, you cut off the skin using a knife (peeling oranges using your fingers or eating apples without removing the skin warrants very confused looks). For breakfast, nearly everyone eats toast, and many people have it with jam. Jam is always spread with a spoon, never a knife. Eating a meal at around 7pm is not done. Lunch is always served between 2pm and 4pm, and dinner is served between 9pm and 11pm. If you're going to eat between 4pm and 9pm, it should just be a light snack. I normally just eat when I'm hungry, and since I had a small lunch yesterday, I decided to make myself an omelet for dinner at 7pm. My roommates couldn't conceive of what I was doing and asked why I was eating lunch so late. When I told them it was dinner, they looked at me pityingly, the way you look at someone who you believe is insane.

-Maybe if I were from a large Italian family living in New York City this wouldn't strike me as much, but being from a relatively chill Massachusetts family, I'm consistently amazed by how much Spaniards shout and interrupt each other in conversation. "Fatal" (which means just what you think it means) seems to be used every few sentences in typical conversation, making it that much more dramatic still. If you didn't understand what people were saying, you'd think travesties and tragedies were occurring right and left, but in reality, they're often talking about what they plan on buying at the grocery store or about a great aunt who has a cold.

-Handwriting here takes a little getting used to. I have to remind myself that m's often look like w's, p's often look like h's, and 1's (the number) look like upside-down v's. Due to these differences in penmanship, I've marked students down on their writing when really they were correct, and I've incorrectly written down my own residence card number on forms. It's probably for the best that writing by hand is becoming less and less common as technology takes over, because otherwise, handwriting in various countries would soon enough become so different that people wouldn't understand the penmanship of anyone from a country other than their own.

-In stores and restaurants, it is very common for employees to call customers pet names like "guapo/guapa" ("handsome/pretty"), "reina" ("queen"), "cielo" ("heaven"), and "cariño" ("love"). Even in stores, customers might call each other these names. (When waiting on line, for instance, someone might say to someone else, "guapa, it's your turn"). Yet on the streets, a Spaniard will act like he/she is the only one who exists. I can't think of one instance when someone smiled at me on the street--they look everywhere but at me. (I'm excluding instances of annoying men shouting, as these wonderful humans fall into their own, special category). Being from America, where calling strangers affectionate names can be seen as harassment and where people do often acknowledge each other on streets, at least with a smile (depending on the region), the contrast in Spain between behavior in stores and attitudes on streets strikes me as quite odd.

-Apart from these silly pet names, the names themselves here are sometimes quite...interesting, as well. A virgin is associated with each region of Spain, so girls will often have their patron virgin's name. They'll go around with names like "Mountain" ("Montaña") and "High Grace" ("Alta Gracia"). What's stranger still is that a very common boys' name is "José María,' and a very common girls' name is "María José." (They always go by both names together). Aside from how bizarre it is for guys to sport names with "María" in them and for girls to have "José" in their names, in English, this would be "Joseph Mary" and "Mary Joseph." Can you imagine how much a kid would be picked on if he/she had both of Jesus' parents' names? Here, it's perfectly normal, though. Also perfectly normal is naming your child Jesus. We have many of Christ's parents as well as Christ himself walking around here in Spain!

-In Spain, they seem to think it's OK  to have to unlock doors in order to LEAVE. I understand needing to unlock doors to get INTO places, but WHAT is the point of needing to unlock your way OUT of an apartment? The other day, I forgot my keys. I don't need to unlock my way out of my apartment itself, but to get out of my building, I need to use a key. None of my roommates were home, so I was trapped for a good while in the hallway, resulting in me arriving half an hour late to my private class. That was annoying, but if there were a fire it would just be dangerous. No fire alarm would go off (did I mention fire alarms don't exist in Spain?) so by the time I'd notice flames, I'd definitely not have time to locate my keys in order to free myself from the building...not to mention that there are a huge number of smokers in Spain so house fires are a legitimate concern.

Those are my main findings thus far...in ten days I'll be back in America, an EXTREMELY normal country. But once I return to Spain next semester, I'll keep my eyes open for more oddities and hopefully will make a part 2 to this post. My mom is already in Madrid, and I'm meeting her in two days and traveling with her around Madrid and to Barcelona...then we'll head home together, and this strange life I'm living, with these crazy people who throw napkins on floors and use spoons instead of knives, will be temporarily over.

I squeezed in one last mini trip with Caroline over the weekend. We ventured to Salamanca, where we experienced the famous nightlife and saw the famous architecture...but my favorite part of all, I admit, was sleeping in our beautiful, glistening, four-star hotel, which, for some unknown reason, was extremely cheap (cheaper, in fact, than all the hostels). I'd been lacking on sleep all week, and there's nothing like passing out in a pleasant hotel room. That's all for now!

Caroline and me (when we finally made it out of the hotel) with Salamanca's bridge and cathedral in the background!

Pastries and Painful Palaces

I'm back from another little trip...this time to Lisbon! In theory, it's not very far from Cáceres, but since Extremadurans don't seem very interested in having buses that run on a somewhat frequent basis, I spent all day Saturday traveling there. (OK, I'll stop being snobby--I know Spain is in a crisis, and Extremadura is the poorest place in Spain on top of that, so I'll stop complaining that I had to spend slightly longer traveling than I'd want to). I had a four-hour bus layover in Badajoz, which, as I said, isn't ideal, but at least it gave me some time to work on a story I'm writing.

Anyhow, when I finally made it it Lisbon, I met up with Jacob and his friend, Nick (who is now my friend, too, I suppose!) at Goodnight Hostel, which has been rated as 3rd best, 5th best, and 10th best hostel in the world! It's beautifully decorated, always has cheerful music playing, everyone there is super friendly (I made tons of lifetime friends in an instant...well, I probably won't keep in touch with them, but they were nice!) and they make lots of free/cheap food and drinks. I sound like an advertisement right now, but seriously, if you go to Lisbon (which you should--it was rated #1 city to visit in 2013 on tripadvisor, and tripadvisor always knows best!) you should definitely stay there. Jacob and Nick had gotten a lengthy tour earlier that day, so they gave me the abbreviated version ("A lot of history happened here" -Nick) while we roamed around the beautiful but not-so-ancient city (I say "not-so-ancient" because in 1755, as Jacob informed me, an earthquake almost completely destroyed Lisbon and surrounding areas). But at this point, you'd never know the city underwent such trauma or that it's in the midst of a horrible financial crisis. When walking around, all you feel is the energy from swarms of passersby and the swooping, artfully-sculpted Christmas lights that dangle from buildings and make streets glow in every color. The energy continues well into the night. We went on a "pub crawl," accompanied mainly by fellow Goodnight Hostelers. I won't go into it much, but I'll just say that Lisbon is quite a party-city.

No one in America ever seems to talk about Portuguese food, and I'd never been to or even seen a Portuguese restaurant before, but I don't know why that is because the food is superb. The seafood is obviously very fresh, so that's what I always ordered. I think my favorite dish might have been rice with seafood (a slightly soupier version of paella) that I had for lunch on Sunday, but that's followed closely by cod mixed with potato chips and olives made at the hostel Sunday night! Besides eating, Sunday's highlights included visiting the San Jorge Palacio; peering out over the city from various miradores; and going to Belém, where we saw a monastery with magnificent stone carvings, a 16th century formidable tower on the water, and, best of all, ate famous Portuguese Pastéis, which are cream pastries (I know that brings me back to food again, but these were so phenomenal I had to mention them...I can't even begin to describe them, though. Best to just go and see for yourself).

Two Delicious Cream Pastries Lie in Wait!

On Monday, we went to Sintra with two of Jacob's roommates. We drove endlessly up a very steep hill until we made it to the top, where we explored a very colorful, 19th century Candyland/Guadí-esque palace called Palacio de la Pena, which means "Palace of Pain." Luckily, none of the pain rubbed off on me...it was quite a pleasant experience roaming around the many little towers and passageways, in fact. The four of them departed shortly after, leaving me to kill time in a wonderful aquarium until my bus arrived. There I had the joy of being surrounded by swirling invertebrates, hermaphroditic sharks, sharks who eat their siblings in the womb, lounging sea otters, fish that disguise themselves to look like sand, and swarms of pimply Portuguese boys who enjoy pestering girls who are eight years their elder.

Palacio de la Pena

Now I'm back to Cáceres life, hanging out with my lovely, British Caroline and her swell roommates (who I talk to much more than my own roommates); desperately trying to find food that doesn't contain preservatives at the grocery stores (Spaniards don't seem to be very health-conscious); trying (probably unsuccessfully) to explain the difference between "a" and "an" to unruly first graders; and in my private classes acting out skits about going to the beach and eating tiger meat.