My Spanish Social Life

The past few weeks (wow, forgive the elapsed time between posts!) have been marked, more than anything, by a healthily-growing Spanish social life that is now robust and really rewarding. Instead of attempting to chronicle the happenings of my life in a chronological way, I think it might be more interesting to group paragraphs around a person with whom I have spent significant time in the past so that you can all see what has been happening to my social life.

Essentially, after being in Spain for three months, I finally have the vast majority of my social life with Spaniards, and it has been a really gratifying experience to get to know these fascinating, good-hearted people. From time to time it is frustrating for me when I feel like I can't communicate with the same level of wit, humor, or nuance of meaning as I could in English, but that is also part of what is so thrilling about having friendships in a foreign language--you are forced to express your emotions, thoughts, and happenings in a second system of codes, and when you do so successfully the attendant sense of accomplishment and interpersonal connection is extremely rich. All of those years of studying irregular past tense verbs, the subjunctive, random vocabulary units and the impersonal "se" pay off enormously when you connect souls with a Spaniard through the medium of the Castilian tongue.

Ana is one of my best friends here in Spain, and she and I have had some wonderful times together. She invited me to see a film, El árbol de la vida, which she prefaced as being existentialist and somewhat strange. The film was atypical, but it was extremely well done and the strangest thing about it was to discover upon entering the theater that it was actually an American film, The Tree of Life, which had been given a Spanish title and subtitles but which played in the original English. Some of the translations of movies and books are really straightforward--Amanecer just come out as the latest installment of the Crepúsculo series, for example (Breaking Dawn and Twilight, respectively). Others, however, are much less straightforward, like I learned in the conversation I had about a movie called Hacia rutas salvajes (literally something like Towards Wild Routes) that I kept thinking reminded me of Into the Wild until later I realized that it was, in fact, the same movie. It's always interesting to see how these things get translated. Anyway, Ana and I have had some great times together. One evening we went out for some delicious Mexican food (I almost consider Mexican food my home food while here in Spain since it's so prevalent in the United States) and then a cup of tea, all of which was accompanied by good, soul-nourishing conversations. Another day, I went with her a little ways out of the center of the city to help her pick up a car, so I got to drive a nice Audi on the Madrid highway, and it felt amazing to be behind the wheel after months of no contact with a car! She and I have also been sustaining an intellectual friendship--she lends me books like an anthropologist's perspective on adolescent immigrants in the USA (La infancia de la inmigración), a collection of short poems on life, death, identity and love (Piedras del camino) and such. She and I are also re-reading San Manuel Bueno, mártir, one of my favorite short novella's by Miguel de Unamuno that really affected me when I first read it in Mrs. Chamberlain's AP Spanish Literature class. Cultivating a friendship with her has been very rich to say the least.

The other family to whom I teach English classes, Ruth (the mother), Eugenio (the father), and Adriana (the daughter) have also been particularly nice to me. Noticing that one day I was wearing glasses and not contacts during our class, they inquired and I told them that my left contact occasionally causes me pain. They then took it upon themselves to make me an appointment with an eye specialist, and Eugenio accompanied me there to make sure he didn't try to force me to buy any expensive glasses or contacts. Afterward, we all ate olives and almonds and just talked about religion, politics, and other classy subjects fit for polite conversation. :) (Rest assured that my eye is completely fine.) They have also invited me to a dinner for Ruth's birthday next week where I will meet their oldest son. It's unbelievable how caring and open Spaniards are, and this family is no exception.

The remnants of a large tree close to the town
square in dreamy Miraflores de la Sierra

In Carmen Martín Gaite, the high school where I work, I have become close friends with one teacher named Benito. He's just a super nice, chill guy, and we always enjoy talking when we have a free hour together or during the brief "recreo" (recess break) that the kids have everyday. He invited me to come spend the day with him in the small town where he lives in the far north of the Comunidad de Madrid, the autonomous region of Madrid and its surrounding cities in the center of the Iberian Peninsula. I caught a bus on Sunday morning out to Miraflores de la Sierra ("Flower-looker of the Mountains"--what a beautiful name, eh?) and spent a wonderful day there with him and his family. The city is small and mountainous and quaint in the way that I always imagined Europe would be. The day was foggy which actually gave the entire experience a Lord of the Rings majesty that was unforgettable. Benito gave me a tour of the small town, showing me the central plaza, the bull-fighting ring, and the large tree trunk about which a famous poet once composed a verse. He then took me into his home and introduced me to his wife, one of the nicest, most hospitable people I've ever met, and his two kids, both adorable little munchkins. They also have a dog to whom I took a special liking. Benito's wife Nichol had prepared so much delicious food that I can't even remember all that we ate. We started with appetizers of steamed mussels and olives. We then ate "langostinos a la plancha" (big shrimp that are cooked on a grill) which were so good and made me feel really bad that Dad had his favorite food robbed from him by the development of his allergy. We also had a paella that was made with small noodles instead of rice and had a whole bunch of different types of seafood in it. Dessert was a "tarta de Santiago" (Saint James's cake), a delicious almond cake that hit the spot after such an amazing meal. We spent the afternoon and evening talking, walking around the city, and just having fun. I returned late that night so grateful for the hospitality that this beautiful family showed me. It felt really good to be in a small, Laramie-like town and to have a domestic day rather than the busy, young, city days that I am used to having here in Madrid.

I have also become closer with a woman who teaches technology in my school named Laura. She and I have begun the tradition of eating lunch together every Thursday, and it's been a blast. She has led a really interesting life and has an attitude that, though almost slightly cynical and very practical, I find really engaging and refreshing. She's been wonderful.

Though the photo isn't great, the dark-haired and darker-skinned woman in the
center on the right is Laura from technology and on the left next to her
(also with dark hair) is Ana from the counseling office.
Benito is the shorter guy on the far right.

To help ease the pain of being away from our loved ones on Thanksgiving Day, the teachers at my school surprised the Americans with a Thanksgiving feast in the faculty lounge. I was so surprised and happy that I couldn't take the smile off of my face. We all ate a lot of food and celebrated an American holiday that I really missed this year even though I made some priceless memories.

Ali and her sister, Natalie, exuberant about the cups of chocolate
and piles of churros we're all about to eat.

Ali has continued to be a source of deep friendship, laughter, and wonderful human connection. She is such an amazing woman, and she has really listened to me as I consider some of my possibilities for the future. Her mom and sister came to visit her in Madrid, and I was lucky to get to spend some time with them. We toured the Palacio Real, had a picnic outside of the Prado art museum before entering and seeing some great art, and even enjoyed some "churros con chocolate" in Madrid's famous churrería. It was wonderful to connect with such a brilliant, loving family (from San Francisco, no less), and it was really great to understand Ali better by seeing her genetic and familial roots.

Kelly, my roommate, has also been a constant source of support and mirth. She has had the good heart to cook multiple groups of Spaniards ornate, involved Thanksgiving dinners, and I have been the lucky recipient not only of the food but of the good company, as well. In one dinner, Kelly slaved away all day to make a whole host of dishes--pumpkin and pecan pie, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, a turkey, and other dishes. When we ate the meal with the Spaniards, it was fascinating to see them ask us to explain why we celebrate Thanksgiving, and what a cranberry is, and why anyone would make a sweet dessert out of a weird squash. Living in a new culture certainly teaches you to take nothing for granted, and if you allow it to, it invites you to question and critically reflect on many parts of your being and your culture that you always assumed were "just the way that things are." Kelly and I also always talk about language since we both share a passion for linguistics. We read the same linguistics books and then dissect them to understand their pieces. We both have a lurking suspicion that, someday in the future, we may both undertake graduate studies in the riveting field of linguistics. She has been a wonderful roommate and a great anchor for me the past three months.

Lastly, I have been actively cultivating my relationship with myself which, though it sounds horribly corny to say so, I actually believe is probably the most important relationship of all since it's the only one I really have to live with every second of the day. I've been re-reading one of my favorite books, Gay Spirit Warrior, and taking its encouragement and advice to look within and act without, and it has already yielded good results. Two days ago, to spend some quality time with myself, I went to Casa de Campo, an enormous, wooded park in Madrid that is one of my favorite spots in the city. There I ran around, did the "circuito de acondicionamiento físico" (the physical conditioning circuit from which I am still sore) and simply listened to music and enjoyed the beautiful view of the fall-colored leaves and Madrid's beautiful buildings in the background. All is well here for me. My life has been a beautiful dream. I miss you all and think about you all everyday, but I am growing, alive, and well here in Madrid.

Barcelona, Little Miracles, and a Vallisoletano

The past two weeks have been marvelous in every sense of the word. Every day I feel like I undergo so many interesting and novel experiences, just as I feel a range of fascinating emotions daily, and I am certain that I could write a novel about each and every day. However, I will try to limit myself to the highlights lest I lose my faithful and beloved readership and bore myself in the process, as well. :)

Two weeks ago, all of Spain had multiple days of vacation for a national holiday called "Día de Todos los Santos" (All Saints Day). Wanting to see more of Spain and thinking it foolish not to take advantage of the holiday at hand, I decided to plan a trip with my beloved friend Ali. I will describe Ali at greater length later, but suffice it to say now that she is brilliant, warm, and a sheer pleasure to be with. She and I booked a room in a hostel in Barcelona, bought bus tickets (the cheapest and slowest way to arrive), and decided to see what is supposed to be Madrid's rival city and a Spanish gem in the northwestern coast of the country.

The bus ride was very enjoyable. Ali and I shared headphones and swapped songs that we like, and loving music like I do, I always enjoy seeing what songs people that I respect listen to. She showed me a few that she had specifically chosen for me to aid me along my path of intense self-discovery here in Spain, and I recommend them to all of my readers. ("Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls has some beautiful, quite intellectual lyrics, and "Diamonds and Gold" has a sexy, jazzy feel and is about seeking happiness instead of material wealth.) When we finally arrived in Barcelona, we decided to see the Sagrada Familia (the Sacred Family) Cathedral that is supposed to be the magnum opus of Gaudi, the architect who left his modernist mark on the entire city of Barcelona. The Cathedral is stunning both in daylight and when illuminated artificially at night. Gaudi's modernist idea, as far as I was able to learn from some brief reading and then experiential scrutiny, is a mixture of the old Gothic, with its mixture of majesty, grandeur, austerity, and form, and the modernist love of disarray, fragmentation, kitsch, and chaos. His buildings are strange, to say the least, but I enjoyed them immensely. The Sagrada Familia is still unfinished, and work continues on it today by the funds raised from donors.

The beauty of the building is, in my opinion,
slightly compromised by the construction
equipment that surrounds this work in progress.

Gaudi's other buildings are equally compelling and bizarre, and the city is literally dotted with them. They are, for most tourists, the highlight of Barcelona, a city that is architecturally beautiful and, in general, probably considered more aesthetically pleasing than Madrid to most people. It was a pleasure to walk Barcelona's streets and feel so surprised by the beauty of everything that I saw, which probably made me look like a trigger-happy tourist given the number of photos I took. Below are a few more specimens of magnificent buildings that Ali and I saw.

Casa Milà, "La Pedrera" (The Stone Quarry),
is another Gaudi masterpiece.

Contrasting facades on two adjacent buildings

The Maritime Museum, I believe, just right there in the traffic

Barcelona is also home to some stunning Gothic architecture, a central cathedral and a slightly smaller one known as the "Catedral Santa María del Mar" being chief among them. Being the neat-freak that I am, I think that I prefer the dignity and order of the Gothic architecture rather than the hectic mixture of gaudy styles that Gaudi (could the two words be etymologically related? :) ) preferred. Seeing the utter grandeur of these enormous, elegant buildings, I couldn't help but to think about how different the lives were of the people who built and worshipped in them. Thousands of impoverished peasants whose life expectancy was probably around 40 years spent hundreds of years constructing beautiful monuments to the god of their Catholic faith. Little else remains to testify to their existence--most were illiterate, their homes were made of cheap material, and their bodies weren't enshrined in nice tombs upon their death. On the other end of the spectrum, though, were the nobility and clergy whose houses and edifices survive completely intact into the 21st century and are the tourist destinations of millions of middle class people like myself. Life has changed so much, and I wonder so much what the zeitgeist, the general paradigm, was like for different people in the past. What would it feel like to be an indigent peasant who came to this cathedral to pray for the soul of his son who had just died of tuberculosis lest it go to purgatory and suffer? This is the power of history, I think--to get us outside ourselves and to help us consider other ways of life quite foreign to our own.



Ali and I enjoyed a host of delicious tapas in Barcelona

Though Barcelona really is a feast for the eyes, the most enjoyable parts of the trip were the amazing conversations I had with Ali over some truly delicious meals. She and I spoke about everything from the difficult things in our pasts, to the reasons we love our best friends, to how best to improve ourselves and the world, to what our favorite country songs are. Conversation with Ali is always so rich because of how articulate and considerate she is. She always asks probing and loving follow-up questions, and she always answers questions with sincerity and compelling nuance. One night, we stayed in our hostel and cooked an amazing Italian dinner from ingredients we purchased at a grocery store below us. Since we were the only ones in the hostel that night (what great luck, eh?), we played each other fun country songs that we like and ate a delicious feast of carbohydrates and salad. I played her some John Denver and Lonestar, and she played me some Keith Urban and Bob Dylan. It was so enjoyable. In other conversations, we talked about what next year will look like for both of us (for both it is full of possibility and excitement but mostly lacking concrete direction), how to be more honest people (I confessed that sometimes I lie and pretend that I've read a book or seen a movie that I actually haven't, so this month I'm monitoring myself vigilantly to improve this bad habit), and how to lead a balanced life. She is one of the deepest and most interesting people I have had the pleasure of meeting, and I think that the universe was looking out for me when it introduced me to her. You will all love her when you get the chance to meet her, and she knows about all of you. Mom, she's from San Francisco, and the Bay Area is her favorite place on earth, and I told her that you two share that belief. :) She is a godsend out here, encouraging me to accept myself as I am but to push myself to be my best self, as well.

Our hostel was inexpensive and yet very
comfortable and stylish

Since returning from Barcelona, life has been very rich here. On recommendation from my roommate Jesús, with whom I've grown much closer, I've been reading El monje que vendió su Ferrari (The Monk that Sold His Ferrari), a sort of New Age book about using discipline and positive thinking to improve your life. Though it's heavily didactic and not the most beautifully-written (says the English snob in me), I've really enjoyed reading it, and I felt like I've been blessed by the universe with the things that I need in a way that the book says happens for those who truly seek. For example, one night, as I walked home from swimming practice, I thought about how I could integrate more vegetables into my diet. When I came home, my roommate Kelly had just made a huge pan full of peppers, potatoes, squash, pumpkin, and onions in a really good sauce. She had made enough for both of us just out of the blue! Other little miracles have come my way when I've needed them, and it's been so wonderful. I've deepened friendships with some people at work, including notably Ana, Vega's mother, with whom I enjoyed an Indian food meal and many good conversations about anthropology, education, and life in general. I'm also growing more comfortable with Laura and more comfortable in my apartment, in general. All is very well here. I keep growing and learning, and that's what it's all about for me at this point.

Lastly, another big miracle came into my life a little over a week ago, and his name is Miguel. He is the president of not just the swim team that I'm on but the entire sports league that comprises the soccer, running, volleyball, basketball, and leisure/free time sections. The entire club had an assembly to vote on the official matters and business of the club, and afterwards we ate a delicius meal. I met Miguel at the meal, and then he and I talked later when all of us went out to a dance club in Chueca, Madrid's gay neighborhood. The next day, he invited me to a delicious meal of steamed mussels and a special white wine made from grapes from Valladolid, his native city. (Incidentally, Alberto is also from Valladolid. The "gentilicio," or adjective form for a person from Valladolid is a "vallisoletano," though their nickname is "pucelano.")  Afterwards, we walked around central Madrid as he explained the history of some of its buildings and statues. Miguel had a standing invitation to see what was supposed to be a beautiful apartment in a very expensive skyscraper in Madrid, and he invited me to accompany him after our stroll. The apartment was on the 32nd floor of a building and was one of the nicest flats that I have ever seen. The owners were two gay men, a couple, who work in international business trying to promote LGBT-friendly business solutions. They have an enormous balcony that literally overlooks all of Madrid. It had been raining earlier in the day, so on one side of the city was an enormous rainbow. On the other side of the wrap-around balcony (yup, a wrap-around balcony on the 32nd floor!) the sun set over the red roofs of Madrid. It was probably the prettiest sunset I've ever seen, and I almost cried out of happiness in that moment. There I was, with three great gay men on the balcony of the highest residence in Madrid (there are taller buildings, the owners told me, but they are all offices), seeing a rainbow and a sunset at the same time. Life doesn't get better than that. I'm so fortunate. (I didn't have my camera with me, but Miguel took some photos on his iPhone. I will ask him for them and include them in my next post.)

Miguel participates actively in the volleyball section of our club, so he has invited me to some practices, and I have gone twice. Fearing that I would make an utter fool of myself on the court, I told him and the others that my dad was once quite the volleyball player who has an entire collection of medals and trophies. I told them that I hoped I had the same talent in my blood or that I could channel the same athletic spirit. I'm not sure it worked, but it was certainly a nice wish. :) Ever since the first volleyball practice a week ago, Miguel has asked me multiple times if I have told you yet, Dad, that I played volleyball. He thinks you're going to be so proud of me for attempting to follow in your footsteps.

This week is the LGBT film festival here in Madrid, so last night Miguel and I went with other members from my swim team to see a really cute film called You Should Meet My Son. Taking a positive twist on the tragic, depressing gay movies that we are all accustomed to seeing (with suicides, cheating, murder, or impossibility of love at the end), this film was about a Southern mother who, after learning her son is gay and overcoming some of her own prejudices, decides to try to find him a boyfriend in order to make him happy. She ends up making great gay friends herself in the process and helping her son overcome his own internalized homophobia and choose the harder but more fulfilling path of true love with a man rather than trying to fake or force a marriage with his female fiance. We had a great time and then spent the rest of the night at a really classy birthday party to which I was invited. Lest anyone think otherwise, it behooves me to say that Miguel and I are only friends. But we've grown closer rather quickly, and it has been really wonderful to make a supportive, kind, Spanish friend.

Thank you for your comments on education, everyone. I find this a fascinating theme. Ana sent me a link to a really neat talk that has a sketched drawing to accompany it. I re-found it in its original English on YouTube and am including the link here for any who want to watch it. I think it's a neat perspective on the education system and agrees with lots of what you guys and I think. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Spanish Hospitality and Thoughts about Education

I know that it hasn’t even been a week since my last post, but I wanted to write briefly in honor of the compassion that has been shown to me this week by various Spaniards. I love the Spanish people so much, and I want to share a few anecdotes that I think encapsulate their amicability, selflessness, and wonder.

First of all, last weekend there was another enormous street protest, and my school, Carmen Martín Gaite, was granted the privileged position of heading the marchers. I went to support my teachers, and it was a riveting day. I saw some of my students there, one of whom stayed by my side for much of the march and introduced me to his entire family. I also spoke with many members of the staff and faculty of my school, not a few of whom expressed gratitude for my solidarity with them at this time. I walked the majority of the march with Ana, a woman who works in “orientación” (similar to a counseling office), her husband Ángel, and their daughter, Vega. Vega is an adorable three-year-old that I play with in English for a couple hours a week. When the protest was done, I went to get a fried-calamari sandwich with my co-workers. After the sandwich, I went out with Ana, Ángel, and Vega to a really relaxed and wonderful-smelling tea house. There we drank tea and talked about religion, politics, how societies organize themselves, and things of the sort. It was a profound, fascinating conversation, and throughout it I had the constant sense of having found true friends and caretakers here in Madrid, something that I don’t take lightly in a new culture and country.

Earlier this week, Ana made me “cocido madrileño,” a dish that does not really have an equivalent in the United States. It’s a delicious, savory broth that has chick-peas, carrots, and potatoes, and then you add different meats to the recipe, in this case chicken, chorizo (a pig sausage) and morcilla, which is a type of blood sausage whose description didn’t sound like something a former vegetarian would eat with alacrity but whose taste ended up being scrumptious. She also made a delicious salad with olives, tomatoes, capers, and such, and the meal was simply incredible. And of course, she sent me home with extras so that I could re-heat and enjoy leftovers. She and I have also had some really great talks about anthropology (her course of study at university), feminism, whether or not people living in first-world countries like Spain and the United States owe a social or economic debt to those in impoverished countries (especially when the impoverished countries were formerly part of an empire or a territorial property of the first-world country), and how to carry an attitude of wonder and novelty with you everywhere you go. I have felt so blessed to run across her and her family.

Another friend, Jesús from my swim team, is also as loving as can be. He is from Navarra, one of the northernmost regions of Spain, and after returning home from his native town this weekend, he wanted to make me a traditional Navarran dish. We ate “borrajas” (which my dictionary translates as “borage,” which I have never heard of, but which was a vegetable that sort of tasted like a mix of asparagus and celery) and a really nice cod, egg, and potato stew. Wanting to be polite, I had asked my co-workers what a typical Navarran dessert would be so that I could contribute to the meal, so I brought “buñuelos de manzana,” which translates more or less as “apple doughnuts” and which were a strange type of apple cut into large, thin slices, covered in a really good hint-of-lemon batter, fried, and then topped with cinnamon and sugar. Jesús and I ate like kings, and the whole meal was full of great conversation about finding direction in life, what qualities are important to develop in yourself and to look for in a mate, and other things. He is truly a remarkable man—he published a book about the geography and demography of Navarra before he got his PhD at Berkeley, and he is just incredibly warm, relaxed, and helpful. He, too, sent me home with some pickled red peppers that his mom made for him in Navarra and a tomato and green pepper sweet jelly that someone gave him that he is too afraid to try.

Things have also improved with Laura, the difficult roommate. She is just quite lonely and miserable, and when I realize that, I am not offended by her way of being and treating me. We haven’t had any mind-shattering conversations or heart-opening moments, but we’ve caught the metro together a few times, and I think all is well. Regardless, I feel more comfortable living where I do, and that is important.

I will tell you about one last great conversation I had this week and then I will ask for your input on the matter. On Wednesday, I had a free period in my work schedule, so I went with a teacher in another department at Carmen Martín Gaite to get a coffee and chat. He is one of two teachers to whom I give English lessons on Monday and Tuesday, so we know each other and feel comfortable talking deeply. Probably because I have been thinking about the topic so much, the education system and the goals of the entire pedagogical process came up as the subject matter of the conversation. He and I proceeded to have a lively talk about what is working and what is failing in education in Spain, in the United States, and in general. All of which leads me to my own soapbox where I will muse and pontificate…

Working in education is a thrilling and taxing job. I have fallen in love with my students and want nothing more than their well-being, their happiness, and their development into ethical, strong, loving human beings. It’s unbelievable how much you can care for your students. There is one who is occasionally difficult but adorable as a button and sweet as can be—he’s really small, wears glasses, and has awkward 12-year-old teeth with gaps and protrusions that adolescence and braces will probably smooth out. One teacher with whom I work told me that he is pretty socially isolated from the other kids because he doesn’t like soccer (which is truly a sin in Spain) and is small. Hearing things like this break my heart and make me realize how much I already care for these kids. Wanting what is best for them, I always wonder what the role of school is in their lives. They have to be at school six to seven hours a day, and kids in Spain don’t get a lunch or snack break. They move from class to class and are constantly reprimanded for talking in class, for not doing their homework, or for mis-conjugating an obscure English verb. Then they have physical education where they are all tested against a standard benchmark and given either a passing or a failing score. My tall, athletic boys pass with flying colors. My short, chubby boys fail and then feel terrible about themselves. And I hate seeing them go through that self-hatred, that social judgment, without an adult like me to tell them that failing at the horizontal jump doesn’t make them any less of a person.

Call me a progressive hippie, but I don’t think that the system prepares kids for what they need in life. As a soon-to-be 23-year-old, what do I need in life? I’m not 100% positive, but I think the best skills that I have or am trying to acquire or have the aspiration of one day acquiring are these:

1. How to take care of myself physically—how to choose healthy food and prepare it myself; how to find exercise that is both enjoyable and challenging; how to get enough sleep; how to make healthy choices about drugs, alcohol, and other substances
2. How to take care of the rest of myself—how to organize my time wisely; how to relax and enjoy life; how to use art, spirituality, friendships, and love to amplify my being; how to resolve my psychological maladies; how to integrate different parts of my being
3. How to relate to others—how to listen; how to be compassionate; how to understand cultural and personal differences; how to foster friendships and sexual/romantic partnerships

And so on. So while school was absolutely thrilling at times for a nerd like me, I feel like spending six to seven hours a day studying the Civil War, the Spanish subjunctive, how to do vibrato on the cello, and why adding neutrons to a nucleus doesn’t change the element’s atomic number may be a misappropriation of our precious time in life. Is there a way that school could be about learning how to care for yourself and for others? Could there also be a way for kids to identify passions and interests, like science, sports, or Swedish, and then run with those as their heart tells them to? Are we preparing our kids for the world with the education we give them? And are we merely reproducing the existing political and social structure with our education, or are we really considering what is best for each kid with his and her own needs, desires, abilities, and problems?

Let me briefly say that I absolutely believe in excellence and hard work. I also absolutely believe in intellectuality, mental curiosity, and intense study. I realize that probably for the majority of societies throughout the majority of history, children have been used as intensive labor for hours a day or have not even been given names until adulthood since the likelihood of their impending death given the childhood mortality rate meant that they might be a “lost investment.” I realize that school is a privilege, and that is why I want to do it right. So let me say that I find history fascinating and life-changing—just read Howard Zinn to see why history can change the world. I find chemistry astounding and mind-blowing—reading The Elegant Universe (more about physics, but you know what I mean) this summer showed me how science is at the heart of the question of what life is all about. I just don’t know if forcing these kids to do rote memorization for hours a day while they’re hungry and just thinking about the fight they had with their parents, or how they’re going to fit in with their friends, or what they’re going to do about their newly emerging sexual feelings might not be the best system. And I want to know what you all think, if you would like to share. Does the education system work? What do we want out of it—people that are generally smart and well-rounded? People that are happy? People that know how to work hard? Please share if you like. I’m fascinated by this topic.

I’m leaving tomorrow for my first Spanish travel-vacation to Barcelona! I look forward to it and will certainly write about my adventures when I return.

Exploring Madrid's Environs and Personal Growth

Madrid continues to be a city of endless wonders. For someone who is wild about history, language, food, and the arts, there is no better city in the world than Madrid, the vibrant and bustling capital of a fascinating country. (I realize that I am utterly unqualified to make such a bald statement, given that I have really only lived in 3 cities in my whole life, but I still think that Madrid would be hard pressed to find a rival in terms of culture and the arts--maybe London or Paris, but it's hard to say.) The past couple of weeks have been weeks of artistic indulgence, exploration, and general self-expansion. They have been thrilling in every sense of the word. Let me tell you first about some of the excursions that I have undertaken, and then let me describe the internal changes that I have been undergoing, as they have been some of the biggest of my entire life.



Last weekend, I caught a bus to a small town called Manzanares el Real that is still within the autonomous community of Madrid but that is not in Madrid proper. (It's actually quite close to Moralzarzal, the town where I teach.) Manzanares is known for the two castles that adorn its hillsides, a small nature reserve that it has, and a few other cultural and historical landmarks. Because I didn't have loads of time, I limited myself to visiting the "new castle," built originally in the 15th century and elaborated upon later. It is a stunning piece of architecture, and I was just overwhelmed with a sense of how incredible Europe is the whole time I was walking within its stony walls. The castle was almost entirely evacuated, too, since it's off the beaten path, so I took a long time walking slowly through its rooms and chambers, absorbing the vibe and appreciating the centuries upon centuries of European history that means instead of having a Wal-Mart down the street a Spaniard might have a castle that belonged to a duke in the adjacent property.  Can you tell that I'm something of a Europe aficionado? It was a great trip, and I will certainly be returning to the hamlet sometime soon.

I was also fortunate to visit another small town within the community of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares. This town is famous for being the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the world-renowned novelist whose magnum opus is indubitably El ingenioso don Quijote de la Mancha. I went to Alcalá with my co-worker, James, a Brit from a city just north of London who is also a teaching assistant at my school. He and I get along really well, so when he invited me to go out there with him to a medieval fair, I accepted. The words "medieval fair" made me think of a nerd-fest galore, where people speak in affected accents and wear gaudy costumes designed to look antiquated. The reality was much less awkward and more enjoyable--the small streets were packed with vendors selling desserts, candies, meats, breads, candles, trinkets, and other such goodies. There were random exhibits in the little plazas and town squares, such as a bird exhibit (I saw a real vulture and touched an adorably small owl!) and a man with a few large snakes wrapped around his body. We had an enjoyable time, and I ended up making friends with a few other people that James invited and going to a karaoke bar with them later that same night.

A couple of new friends--Mathieu and Wes, both from
New Brunswick, Canada

Within the confines of the actual city of Madrid lies an ancient Egyptian temple called the "Templo de Debod." Apparently, sometime in the last 50 years a series of large floods along the Nile threatened to wash away a valley of temples and ancient Egyptian buildings in Egypt and Nubia (northern Sudan). A few governments donated labor and money to help save these buildings from destruction, and to thank these governments, Egypt granted each its own temple. Apparently there is one in New York, one in Amsterdam, and this one, the Debod Temple, in Madrid. The temple is in a beautiful park that overlooks part of the city of Madrid, and the temple itself is fascinating with all of its engravings of the Egyptian pantheon (Osiris, Isis, Hoth, and such) and the various antechambers used for ceremonial religious rituals. As my family can attest, I have long held an interest in ancient Egypt, and it was great to be able to experience a part of it without suffering the political contention of the area today and without having to pay the airfare necessary to get me to Africa!

The Templo de Debod, transplanted from Egypt
to a large, sylvan park in Madrid

My culinary attempts have continued to be successful despite my treading in highly unfamiliar territory. Last weekend I made "cordero con garbanzos," lamb with chick-peas. I have never cooked or eaten lamb before, and I am happy to report that it turned out to be delicious! Because I couldn't find lamb at my local grocery store (called "Carrefour" and somewhat similar to Safeway, though different in some fascinating ways, including the fact that you have to weigh your own fruit and print your own price-tags for it, just as you have to bring your own bag and bag your own groceries once purchased), I had to go to a carnicería, or meat store, to find it. There I purchased a whole leg of lamb which was then sawed into pieces for me, wrapped in paper, and then placed in a plastic bag. Preparing the meal, then, as you can imagine, was a rather gory task--I had to take the cut-up leg out of a bloody bag, cut the meat off of the bones, then cut the fat and skin off of the meat. I thought it would destroy my appetite to see such macabre detail of a slaughtered animal (I pulled the marrow out of the bones and moved the lamb's knee joint!), but the meal ended up being delicious and worth the sanguineous process to get there.

I continue to love my job. Some of my kids, especially the boys, really love me, and it's a really gratifying feeling. I taught them a particular way to do a high-five that Laramie High School swimmers did, and they love doing it with me in the halls and on the playground. I have a few physical education classes with them, and so I teach them the names of bones and muscles, then run with them and stretch with them, and it's a blast. It's also flattering to have a bunch of people tell you how big, strong, and fast you are all the time. These 12 and 13 year-old kids always want me on their team because I'm "el grandón," the very big one. My female students are too shy to say much to me other than "hello teacher," but the guys love to talk to me. My favorite classes are physical education and social sciences. In social sciences, one group of my students is learning about human evolution and really struggled to pronounce the world "australopithecine." (Can you imagine why? I wasn't taught about Homo habilis or Homo erectus until biological anthropology my sophomore year, and these kids are learning it in their second language at age 12!). In another class we're studying the end of the classical period with the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The kids have to memorize technical terms used to describe the architecture of the Hagia Sophia as well as the names of the monarchs of the Carolingian Empire, for example. It's really tough, and I always tell them how smart I think they are. Some days are frustrating since some teachers are burnt-out, the students love to get attention and talk, and the bureaucracy slows everything down, but most days I have a deep sense of joy and satisfaction, and it sustains me.

Personally speaking, I had one of the most inspirational, transcendental, and crazy days of my life two weeks ago. In retrospect, the origins of the mental and spiritual change I underwent were probably in the works long before this day, but it all catalyzed in one moment that I think will leave me permanently changed. What change did I undergo, you ask? Essentially, I was overcome all day with the feeling that I don't really know who I am, and I don't really know what I want or where I'm going in life, but that I love myself, and I love my family and friends, and everything is beautiful. It was the strangest and most overwhelming feeling. It felt as thought I were drugged, or as if I had suffered a stroke or undergone brain surgery. On the one hand, I would almost use the words "confused," "lost," or "drifting" to describe what I felt. However, all of these words carry a pejorative connotation that doesn't do justice to the beauty of what I felt. I felt free, liberated, afloat, and optimistic. I went to the Centro de Arte Museo Reina Sofia that day, where many works of Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso are housed, and the beauty of the art added to the sensation to the point where I began to cry. I started crying when I saw "Guernica," Picasso's masterpiece that is a puissant call for pacifism and an end to the atrocities of war as he experienced them during the Spanish Civil War. I studied this astounding canvas in 7th grade with Mrs. Chamberlain, and I always wanted to see it in the original. When I saw it, I was overcome with a feeling of gratitude for the universe for having given me this opportunity and for Picasso for having used his talent to produce such power and pulchritude; with a feeling of pride for having studied hard and gotten myself to Spain; and with a feeling of the beauty of human life and the tragedy of the destruction and sorrow that we so often bring into it. The feeling continued, and I ended up sitting on a bench on an outside terrace of the museum and just crying tears of gratitude for my life, completely adrift though it may be.

I think that the sensation of being adrift is a pretty natural outcome of living in a new culture and living away from home, but even knowing that, the sensation is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Everything that you are, including all of the ways that you define yourself, get challenged in a new culture, and it is a thrilling, if at times highly uncomfortable, feeling. Professionally, I feel open to many options but also feel as though I don't have the necessary criterion to decide between them. My list of passions continues to expand rather than diminish, which is great for me as a human being but not as ideal in the specialized economies that characterize the first world today. I see the value in many types of work and realize that I am still really lacking the direction that I need to make a decision about graduate school, professional school, and matters of the sort. The other big change that I am undergoing regards sexuality, romance, and love and the role that I want these parts of my being to play in my life. I feel open to everything right now, which is a beautiful feeling but also one that can make you lose your sense of self. I feel like I'm drinking the ocean--there is so much to see, do, and experience in it, but eventually it makes you pop. I popped two weeks ago, and I still think the pieces of my being are scattered about, not yet recomposed as a new person. The good thing about all of this is that, unlike what you would guess from my horrible ocean-drinking-and-popping metaphor, it's actually a glorious experience. I am overcome with waves (pun intended) of gratitude for life and love for humanity and nature almost on a daily basis. I know that I have a myriad of great options ahead of me professionally and romantically, and I was born as a wealthy white male, meaning I have privileges that most of the world can only dream of. I believe, consequently, that I have a responsibility to my fellow humans and to the fragile and magnificent natural environment that sustains us. How to fulfill that responsibility, however, while also filling my own cup and enjoying my own life, remains a mystery. But I honestly wouldn't have it any other way at this point. I'm young, single, and ready to do some tough self-analysis and questioning to find my place in this world. I've been reading and writing voraciously, in addition to talking with trusted people that I love both in Europe and America. I have also been mining TED talks, which are short talks (generally between 5-15 minutes long) in which brilliant, inspired people share ideas about business, politics, the meaning of life, art, and such. Seeing these people talk about their passions and the things they are doing for the world (one man found a way to recycle the plastic that ends up in dumps in developing countries, and one woman designed a burial suit that has toxin-destroying mushrooms in it to help decompose the body in an environmentally-beneficial way) lights my own passion and goads me on to find what I want to do and then to do it damn well and leave this world a better place because of my presence. Keep me in your hearts and prayers, please--I'm changing, maturing, and open to the universe!

Finding a Routine and Making a Life in Madrid

I can't believe that two weeks have passed since my last post. It's amazing how you can go from feeling like a complete tourist-outsider one week and then become fully integrated and even inured to a place the next week. For better or worse, I think that I am undergoing such a process. I am starting to experience what were once new and peculiar phenomena as a part of my quotidian routine, just another thread in the fabric of my daily existence. I am trying to maintain my glasses of "objectivity" (what I would rather term my glasses of American subjectivity), but they seem to be quickly giving way to what is just a new way of seeing things. My life in Spain is really becoming my life and not just a brief stint away from it.

Perhaps more than anything, my mental, internal life has been undergoing significant changes more than the life of my physical surroundings these past two weeks. One profound change has been my sense of what constitutes a language, the concept "bilingualism," and the idea of acquiring a mastery of a foreign language. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I will say that I came to Madrid with lots of unquestioned assumptions about languages. Let me list of few of the ideas about language that I believed.

1. That English, though not a "superior" language to Spanish or any other language, was still somehow particularly "rich" in its ability to express nuance or any different number of linguistic registers because of its enormous lexicon
2. That English was not only more difficult than Spanish to learn but that it was one of the more difficult languages in the world in general
3. That I would "master" Spanish within the year and begin to think in Spanish, dream in Spanish, and speak with the fluency, accent, and words of a native
4. That I would then move on to "master" French and then any other number of world languages--like German, Russian, or Arabic

Yes, to a linguist or anyone who has attempted the enormous feat of learning the language of another culture, all of these assumptions are laughable for being not only culturally-elitist and individually-haughty (I didn't realize how cocky I could be!) but also just flat-out wrong. My growing realization of the error of my thinking has come about primarily from three sources: 1) Being in a school where English is taught as a foreign language, thereby forcing me to examine my language objectively to see how it would be taught to a non-native speaker, 2) Reading two fascinating books by Jon McWhorter, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of the English Language, and 3) Simply living in a culture where Spanish, and not English, is the lingua franca. Let me explain, again in bullet points because it helps me organize the still slightly inchoate thoughts in my head, what I am learning to be true:

1.  English is not a superior language to any other. Ever since the introduction of what linguists term the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis into the lay public's imagination, the theory has spread and thrived, despite it sheer wrongness. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis essentially contends that a language is a receptacle of its speakers' culture and that a language's grammar and vocabulary reflect and limit the worldview of that culture. This theory is the idea that the Inuit can see different shades of snow and therefore have 20 different words for it, or that Greeks experienced different types of love than Americans do, since the Greeks had both "agape" and "eros" and we only have "love." I won't disprove this theory here, but if you believe it like I think I did unconsciously, it's worth looking into and supplanting if for no other reason than because this sort of thing, the frontier where language meets culture, is fascinating. Though English is a rich language with an astounding literary history, it is essentially a totally bastardized version of German, stripped of many of its grammatical superfluities, infused with some Celtic, Welsh, and Cornish grammar, and then amplified with the vocabulary of the French Normans and many other cultures. It too was once a "lowly" tongue when Latin was the language of the educated and elite.
2. English has some parts of it that are terribly difficult while others are quite easy. The same is true for Spanish and likely all languages (though all languages are not equally complex, I learned from my two books). My students, for example, don't have to memorize difficult conjugational endings like an Anglophone learning Spanish does. They only have to put an "s" on the end of the third-person singular verb to conjugate a verb in the present tense: "I run," "you run," "she runs," "we run," "you guys run," "they run." Really simple. They also don't have to learn the subjunctive, any of the other difficult verb endings for different tenses, or the totally foreign concept of non-biological gender that applies to every noun (in Spanish all nouns are either "feminine" or "masculine" for what are completely arbitrary reasons in most cases). However, Spaniards encounter an orthographical nightmare when learning English since the spelling of our words does not always correspond with their pronunciation. They also come from a language with fewer vowel sounds than ours and have a difficult time making the words "bird" and "beard" or "ship" and "sheep" sound different, for example.
3. Mastering a language, it turns out, is such an involved process. Languages that have existed for awhile all acquire almost countless odd turns of phrase, idiomatic phrases, and grammatical constructions that would probably take a lifetime to master. I feel the weight of this every day in Spain. I learned that you only really use "guapo" for people, that "bonito" works for a beautiful place or thing, and that "bella" is very literary and lofty sounding. "Hermoso" is hardly used at all, I was informed here in Spain. So while I thought I had four synonyms for the same concept ("beautiful"), I learned that they each have their own register and their own connotation that dictates their use in conversation. The same is literally true for every word. So while I generally have no problems communicating, I am aware with every word that I am not speaking like a native would. I have dreamt in Spanish two or three times, and every time it is a dream in which I am incapable of rendering my thoughts into coherent Spanish. Suffice it to say that these dreams were much less gratifying than I imagined "dreaming in Spanish" would be. :) Fortunately, my public library has books explaining lots of idiomatic phrases and how to use "discourse markers" like "so," "well," "um," and such in Spanish ("pues," "bueno," "entonces," "vaya," et cetera), so I am marching forward with my desire to increase my competence in Spanish. I am still putting forth enormous effort to listen to the Spanish radio, work through my grammar books, read in Spanish and make vocabulary flashcards, and such, but I realize that all of my efforts will likely never give me the native fluency that I so desired before arriving. And that is okay.
4. If my brief time in Spain has taught me anything so far about my life and my professional aspirations, it has disabused me of the notion that I could be an effective multilingual interpreter. I think such a job is better left to someone raised bilingual from childhood who then undertakes to learn their already native languages formally and thereby concretizes their knowledge of their languages. So I have successfully taken "become a UN interpreter" off the list of potential careers! I will still continue to study new languages all of my life because I find them so riveting and rewarding, but I am now no longer under the false assumption that I can master these languages with ease and rapidity.

Alberto with Alfredo, his father, and Catalina, his mother

Getting away from the heavy and the technical matters of life and language, everything has been going really well here. I have been able to be in contact with Alberto, Laura's and my Spanish friend from high school, and that has been great. For about a week we were hanging out every day--I met lots of his friends, I had dinner with his parents (they wanted American food, so we went to TGI Fridays which, I hate to admit, tasted so good and reminded me of home), he showed me a famous soccer stadium, and things of the sort. He is very busy working in a business firm, though, so things have slowed down this week. He and I are planning on visiting Valladolid (his hometown) and Toledo (where his grandparents live) sometime in the future, though.

I purchased a Spanish cooking book and am going to use it to force myself out of my very American eating habits. To the best of my abilities, I have avoided the large-jawed fish in my supermarket and have stuck to turkey sandwiches, cereals, pastas, and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. However, I don't want to leave Spain having merely reproduced my American life and habits here in this foreign country. So once a week I am going to cook out of this book, be it mussels, shellfish, ham, or squid. I may not come home having found a new favorite dish, but I will always have a repertoire of Spanish recipes and will not feel as though I didn't try my hardest to integrate in all ways into Spain's beautiful culture. Why not open my mind and my palate while abroad, eh? My first experiment was perhaps on the conservative side--"albóndigas en salsa," or meatballs in red sauce. Though it looks simple, the marinara-like sauce is actually a homemade mix of many vegetables that are softened then pureed into a thick and delicious sauce. It turned out marvelously, and I fed it to two of my roommates and a Fulbright friend.

The swim team continues to be incredible. I feel elated and powerful after practice as I catch the metro back home each night while listening to some feel-good music on my iPod. I have made good friends on the team and am particularly close with a 50-something named Jesús. He received his doctorate at Berkeley in sociology and teaches at a university here in Madrid. He is very brilliant but very down-to-earth, and he always helps me when I have a linguistic question since his English is so good. I have also begun to notice that our trainer, a stern and intense man named Daniel, has begun to warm up to me. He's a great coach who absolutely knows his swimming, but he can be a little spartan at times. However, I've gotten more "muy bien, Bob" comments lately, which has been gratifying. He also lent me a swimming technique book of his that I have been reading in order to help me improve my strokes. It's been a thrill.

Kelly at a business party, sipping a drink that has a rose-petal
in it. Also, notice all the peole in suits. I was way
under-dressed.

The roommate situation is still less than ideal. Laura is one of the hardest people to get along with that I've ever met. She got very upset with me for buying a little bucket to put our recycling in. I told her that she never had to take the recycling out, that I would always do it since it's a value of mine that need not cause her more work or stress. She said that she hated having to separate out her trash, so I got rather rude back to her and said that for someone who wants to be an orthodontist it didn't strike me as a very difficult task. Cheeky, I know, and not my most compassionate moment, but I can't believe the nerve of this woman. She is one of the most negative people I know. She drinks at least a liter of beer every night as she smokes in our kitchen. She feels no compunction destroying her roommates' lungs but insists that we deep clean random parts of the apartment every week. Suffice it to say that she's not my favorite person. Kelly, however, is a constant source of joy and relief. She is quite integrated into Spanish society and has let me piggy-back off of her social life, which has reaped great rewards, especially given that one of her friends is a 40-something business man who gets invited to promotional parties for rich people, invitations that he passes to Kelly and me. One of them occurred in a super ritzy hotel with a stunning view of Madrid, and it was an honor to be a guest at such a posh event.

My job is so rewarding, and it has been so pleasurable to discover a love of teaching. I love my students so much. They ask me questions like this all of the time (envision a thick Hispanic accent with all of this--make all of the vowels long and give the r's a slight trill): "Teacher Bob, have you girlfriend?" "Teacher, like you football? Which team is your favorite?" (All of my boys are passionate about football (soccer) and don't understand why I don't religiously follow the Real Madrid's games.) I teach in many different types of classrooms, including a couple of physical education classes, a music class, many English classes, and a few history and geography classes. Depending on the teacher, I am either used mostly to read aloud and to help with pronunciation or, in some cases, I am given much license and help to design and present the lessons. The teachers with whom I work are great people, and I see many budding friendships between the faculty and me. I am pretty tired, though, because I wake up before 7:00 AM to catch the metro and then the bus to my school, and I don't get back from swimming until after 11:00 PM (at which point I always cook an enormous meal after having burned so many calories in the pool!), so I'm still seeking a remedy for my exhaustion other than taking a siesta everyday which, though it sounds fun, just makes me feel groggy and sweaty, to be frank.

A photo of "deceased teachers" that I took while lying
on the ground outside Madrid's central plaza in Sol

Lots of public services in Madrid are undergoing privatization or are facing the threat of such. The public schools, for example, underwent large budget cuts this year, and at my "instituto" (high school, more or less), 8 teachers lost their jobs as a result. My teachers invited me to a protest against these budget cuts, and I attended. At the strike of 12:00 PM, everyone protesting collapsed to the ground while making moribund moans in order to symbolize the "death of public education." Teachers have been striking two days a week for the past couple of weeks, and in my school, this meant that 40 of the 50 teachers were gone on Tuesday and Wednesday! The strikes are very controversial among the teachers and have created schisms and factions. Some teachers refer to others as "esquiroles" (a pejorative term for a strikebreaker), while those who still come to school to teach think of their cohorts as not putting students first. It has been fascinating to observe this process, and though I don't have a sufficiently nuanced understanding of the underlying economics and politics to have a strong opinion about any of it, I merely hope it all works out for the best for Spain's citizens, economy, and general well-being.

All is well. I will try to update you all more regularly in the future. Can you believe I've been in Madrid a month already?

Dos Besos, a Beautiful Apartment, and a Whole New World

I should probably apologize beforehand for what I believe will most likely be the enormousness of this post. The past week of my life was one of the most beautiful, challenging, and novel weeks that I have ever experienced, and capturing its intensity and wonder might require quite a few words, especially given my loquacious proclivities. Please feel free to read this in installments. Also rest assured that most of my posts won't be as extensive as this one given that I won't be finding an apartment, starting a new job, meeting a thousand new people, learning new cultural customs, and joining new social groups every week of my life. :)

The balcony that won my heart

When orientation ended, Kelly graciously offered to house me as I began my search for an apartment. En route to her apartment, which I intended to be a site of nothing more than temporary lodging, she mentioned that the fifth room in her apartment was available for rent. When we arrived at her "piso" (the Castilian word for apartment, given that almost everyone in the metropolitan part of the city lives on a different floor, or "piso," of tall buildings that have shops and restaurants down below), she unlocked the fifth room and let me enter. If there has ever existed chemistry between a human and an inanimate object, it existed between this room and me. When Kelly opened the doors out to the room's small terrace, with its breathtakingly beautiful view to the quintessentially Spanish rooftops and the tortuous European streets down below, I almost cried. I knew I wanted to rent this room, but I told myself that I should undergo the ordeal of looking for housing on my own as part of my drive to acquire life skills and feel autonomous. My heart wasn't in searching anymore, though, so I mostly just got a bunch of potential numbers in a neighborhood a little bit closer to where I teach but much less thrilling, energizing, and chemically compatible than the neighborhood where Kelly lived. I knew I wanted to live with Kelly. She and I had a few discussions in which we made sure we'd be comfortable living with each other and in which we negotiated linguistic rules (since improving our Spanish is a primary motive for being in Spain for both of us), and we both felt great about it all. So I called her landlord, set up an appointment with him, met with him the following day, and signed the contract.

The view from my balcony to the street below

The apartment is right in the heart of the city in a neighborhood called Lavapiés, which means "foot washer" and which I believe is likely a Catholic reference to the woman who washed Jesus's feet with her hair and tears in the Bible. Lavapiés is known in Madrid for being the colorful, ethnic, grungy, energetic, and progressive part of the city. The restaurants around here are mostly Indian, which is great for a curry lover like me. Probably half of the people or more that hang around the plaza are very large black men who wear colorful robes that certainly aren't European in origin. It is so unbelievably incredible to live here amidst all of the diversity. It's not much like little Laramie at all. I live right on the plaza, which is the name for the center of each different neighborhood in Madrid where there are no buildings and where people hang out and meet. It is always loud and bustling around here, even at 4:00 AM, and there are always characters out and about. It is astoundingly thrilling to live here, and I am so happy to have acquired this apartment and to have been able to move my two suitcases worth of my material life into a closet and a desk. I feel situated and ready for an incredible year. And rest assured that I will be buying plants at Madrid's enormous Sunday morning outdoor market to hang from my balcony. :)

I live with Kelly, who truly is a flawless woman capable of bringing me to my knees with laughter and who has encouraged and delighted me in every interaction we've had; Luis, a madrileño who is studying for his doctorate in economics and is very nerdy and very sweet; Jesús, who is attractive, laid-back, and what we would call a "frat boy" back in the States; and Laura, a woman that honestly terrifies me. She is extremely fierece in her personality and always accuses people of things with an intense vocal tone and a glare that could kill. She is extremely invested in her highly sexualized image--she is super tan, has bleach-blond hair extensions, wears probably three to four different shirts a day always accompanied by a mini-skirt, and only dates men that are body-builders. (I'm not exaggerating--no one else makes her cut. She showed me photos of her ex-boyfriend and her current interest in their speedos at body-building competitions.) Wow! Laura is a total piece of work, but I am nice to her even when she's being ridiculous, and I think she likes me. The roommate situation at first seemed like it might be highly fraught all year, but things have improved. Luis took me out for a breakfast coffee a few days ago and a delicious lunch today, Jesús is always calling me "hombre" (man) or "tío" (Castilian for something like "dude") and is always great to me, and Laura, though intense, did show me photos of her as a little girl, which I think was a very friendly gesture. Having Kelly to help me decompress and process is truly invaluable, and all in all I think I will have an interesting year and many a gut-deep laugh with Kelly about the weird dynamics in the apartment. I will get a photo of my roommates sometime soon so that you can all visualize them better.

As you can tell from my story of acquiring my apartment, this week was one of figuring out lots of logistics, all of which seemed to have turned out well, yet all of which were difficult to do. The bitter irony of this year is that at the beginning, when my cultural competence and linguistic prowess are both at their worst, I am required to fulfill a multitude of tasks, whereas at the end of the year, when Spanish customs and the nuances of Castilian grammar are more natural to me, I won't have these same tasks. This week, for example, I got a Spanish bank account. I had to go to five different banks until I found one that would accept me. Lots of random bank workers and tellers told me things that did not make much sense given my limited lexicon regarding the financial world. Five banks later, I finally found a compassionate and helpful banker who gave me an account, but my entire interview/information session with him was a blur of hunger pangs after running from bank to bank all morning and linguistic shyness because of my newness in Spain. When the conversation seemed to be particularly important, such as our discussion of how to acquire a debit card, I tried my hardest to communicate clearly and understand the thousand-words-a-minute Spanish coming my way. Fortunately, my landlord and I communicate really well, and he even invited me to his apartment to talk about politics with him! Figuring out the bus system out to Moralzarzal, where I will be teaching, was also difficult. But Amy, you will be happy to hear that most people abbreviate the name simple to "Moral." Isn't that lucky? Perhaps the hardest thing all week, though, was the roommate meeting about responsibilities and expectations for the year. Luis, the roommate from Madrid, would have the clearest accent except for his speech impediment. Jesús, the nice bro, is from the Canary Islands, meaning even Luis hardly understands him. And Laura is from a town in southern Spain where the letters "s" and "d" hardly figure in the language at all. Imagine me, having just signed a contract, in a room with all of these people as Laura is asking who is going to do the deep cleaning of a host of kitchen terms I had never learned. I was terrified. It's all worked out really well, though, and every day I understand more of all of them with their particular speech traits. And a good story came out of the roommate conversation--when we discussed the list of common items to be shared and bought together, which included things like spices, sugar, and cleaning supplies, olive oil was a non-negotiable item on that list. Spaniards use olive oil like water--we go through a large bottle every three to four days in this apartment. And this, for some reason that is still a mystery to me, is something that we all pitch in to buy and then can all use whenever we please. Americans are much more into individualism, I'm learning. I keep having to assert my American desire to buy my own things and control my own space in the face of the Spanish system of sharing. So much for cultural assimilation. :)

My clothes drying outside, which is customary,
on the balcony off of my apartment's living room

In terms of cultural differences and Spanish customs, I am continually fascinated to observe both a host of similarities and a plethora of differences between my native American culture and that of my temporarily adoptive culture, Spain. In Spain, for example, people both greet and say good-bye with two kisses, one on each cheek. However, there is a complicated protocol to all of this--two women always kiss, a man and a woman always kiss, but two men generally only kiss if they are very close. At first, I shook everyone's hand when I was meeting them, and they all gave me weird body language when I did so. Then, I went crazy with the kisses and kissed everyone, including a man that I had just met, which totally threw him off. Fortunately, he was really kind and forgiving about it all, but wow! It's tough to figure out. Spaniards also don't always kiss the cheek directly but just make a kiss in the air while touching cheeks. This too, of course, threw me off, and for awhile I actually just kissed people's cheeks, and then I just made a really awkward "mwah" sound when I air-kissed people. Ha ha! I've been a total cultural wreck, but I've learned simply to laugh at myself and cut myself a lot of slack as I learn. I'm also learning that Spaniards love pig in all of its forms and love seafood, and I've been trying to take photos of some of the food eaten here that probably wouldn't be appetizing back home. For you, Mom, I took this photo of my roommate Jesús's lunch, an entire fish, complete with the head, soaked in olive oil. This country is full of surprises, and I will indubitably have many more stories in the future about Spanish culture and how I perceive it.


I will tell you two more stories from this week and then conclude this behemoth post. The first is that I started working at my school, a bilingual institute named after the Spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite, on Thursday. I felt so at home and so happy to be in  what is essentially a combined junior high and high school. It's definitely too early to tell, but I really think that education would be a highly satisfying vocation for me. I met the teachers with whom I'll be working, I saw some of the curricular materials that we'll be using, and I was given keys to various classrooms and lounges. I am so thrilled to be in a pedagogical environment! I can't wait to get to know my students and help them improve their language skills. Kelly has loved her experience--her students call her "teacher Kelly" and spell her name "Queli." Precious, no? She said she also spent five minutes one day teaching the phonological difference between "bird" and "beard," since English has around 10 vowel sounds while Spanish only has 5, making the two words nearly indistinguishable for Spaniards. Ha ha! I can't wait. There will be many more updates about my students as the semester progresses and I begin to be integrated in the classrooms.

Lastly, I can happily report that I conquered some huge fears this week and successfully attended a gay men's running group and a gay men's swim team, both of which welcomed me with open arms. On Wednesday night, I went to the gorgeous Parque de El Retiro to meet with this group of gay runners. I learned lots of new words as we were instructed on what muscles and such to stretch, and I was so nervous and ran so hard during the workout in order to look fit that my calves were sore the next day. :) The swim team met for the first time on Friday, and they practice in a beautiful pool at a "polideportivo," the Community of Madrid's public gym and recreation buildings. The coordinator of the team, whom I had been e-mailing, met me and introduced me to some folks on the team. I learned that in Spain all people are required to swim with a cap, so Luis the coordinator gave me one. I also learned that it is required to wear sandles in the locker room and on the deck of the pool, lest one get athlete's foot or, as they say in Spanish, "mushrooms." I loved the swim team so much. It was truly a dream come true. One man, probably in his fifties, is a sociology professor that got his PhD at Berkeley, and he and I immediately had a bond. He was so kind to me and let me use him to ask him vocabulary questions on words like "flip turn" and such since he has such a high level of English fluency from his stint in California. After our practice, we all went out to get a delicious Chinese dinner (at 11:00 PM, which is completely standard for Madrid). We all hung out and talked until about 1:30, at which point we dispersed since the metro system stops around then. I am definitely the youngest of both groups, which seem to have an average age of around 35-40, but I love the feeling of both groups and am going to pay the membership fees and participate all year. The opportunity to have a gay men's sports group is so mind-blowing and healing for me. Madrid is a land of miracles!