Finishing What I Started: Cuenca, the Last Despedidas, and Vacationing with My Family

A somewhat-panoramic view of the old city on the cliff

Knowing my tenure in Spain was quickly coming to an end, I decided to take one last day-trip to a city that had come highly recommended by Benito but hardly mentioned by most other Spaniards eager to evangelize the beauties of their country. Cuenca is in Castilla-La Mancha, the comunidad famous for being the setting of Cervantes's El ingenioso Don Quijote de la Mancha as well as the region where Toledo, the capital of Visigothic Spain and the seat of government for Catholic Spain until Felipe II moved it to Madrid, is found. I caught a bus out to Cuenca in the morning and, upon arrival, began the hike from the low-altitude bus station up to the austere stone cliffs upon which Cuenca's historic, beautiful part of the city lies. Though the heat in this dry, sweltering part of the country was formidable as I ascended to the high part of the city, the views were so breathtaking that I could hardly think about the sun's rays and the torrents of sweat running down my back.

The casas colgadas, one of which houses
a modern art museum, the other of which
is now a tapas restaurant

Cuenca was a small, very quiet town, and I noticed that it was not mobbed by tourists like some other Spanish towns are. I enjoyed hours of solace walking around the stony architecture of a city built on the cliffs produced by the erosion caused by two rivers, the Júcar and the Huécar. Cuenca is most famous for its casas colgadas, or hanging houses, buildings constructed right on the edge of a steep precipice whose balconies hang over the cliff. They were really impressive edifices, even if one might not be able to take in the sunset in a relaxed manner on such a precariously positioned balcony! The city was full of other impressive structures, as well, from a large bridge (el puente de San Pablo) built over a gorge to the Gothic cathedral of which I took a slow, guided tour in order to savor its relics and history (and enjoy a much cooler climate inside its stone walls and shadows).

The facade on the cathedral had to be rebuilt after
it crumbled and is utterly impressive

After my return from Cuenca, I only had a few days left before my parents and two of my siblings came to Spain to begin a family vacation with me. This time was spent cleaning, packing, and saying last good-byes. I had many tender moments with my students, all of whom went out of their way to thank me for the year we spent together. A few kids who never seemed to enjoy class bought me a plush bull with a Spanish-flag-looking scarf. Others wrote me beautiful and sometimes comical notes, including Martín, initially one of my most difficult students who ended up being one of my closest buddies. After encouraging him not to tell racist and homophobic jokes at the beginning of the year, he and I started talking, and we eventually got close. He always put his arm around me in our PE class, and he always wanted me on his team. During one baseball game, we were on opposite teams, and my team had very few of the athletic kids. Martín was pitching, and I wanted to get a home-run for my downtrodden team of nonathletic 12 year-olds. I swung with lots of force, and the (fortunately) plush ball flew directly at Martín's gonads. I didn't hurt him too badly, and we ended up being able to laugh about it. His last note to me said "thanks for breaking my huevos," which literally means "eggs" and is how you say "nuts" in Spanish slang. Another one of my students, Fran, made me laugh, as well. Fran had always been laconic and slightly morose, though always pleasant and a good student. He told me he had prepared a song to play for me on his guitar. Expecting something to do with saying good-bye or expressing appreciation, I was slightly shocked when he started playing the riffs to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I danced like a crazy man to show my appreciation for his song, and the other students thought their American teacher was loco. We had a great time, with lots of mutual gratitude, a few tears, and the knowledge that we all helped each other have a good year.

Saying farewell to my fellow teachers and friends was also a pleasant experience. Kelly, my roommate, and I celebrated her birthday and our year living together by eating lunch in the restaurant of the National Opera of Madrid, an extremely swanky restaurant that created an unforgettable setting. I will miss Kelly and her astuteness, humor, and good nature. At my school, everyone pitched in both money and labor to prepare a delicious feast of which the main course were three gargantuan paellas. We all chatted on the patio of the kids' playground while eating tasty paella and other Spanish dishes. I said good-bye to many beloved people then and thanked them for welcoming me into their pedagogical community.

Nothing says "Spain" more than a large paella covered
in succulent prawns. ¡Buen provecho!

When all of my good-byes were said and done, and after I had handed over the key to my apartment, I spent the day in anxious anticipation for the arrival of my parents. I had one last lunch with Selma, my brilliant Franco-German friend whose idealism and occasionally sardonic wit keep me honest, and then I simply read in a cafeteria while waiting for my parents and my two youngest siblings, Amy and Josh, to arrive for our vacation together. That Friday, the 29th of June, was the beginning of Gay Pride in Madrid, supposedly one of the biggest gay pride celebrations in the world. The city had a special air about it--Chueca, the "gayborhood," was decked out in rainbow flags and full of information booths and gay couples. On the metro, I saw a young, twenty-something couple composed of one punk-looking guy and another athletic-looking type be subtly affectionate towards each other, and it made my day. While waiting in the airport for my family, I was just overcome with gratitude both for a great year in Spain and to be spending time with the people that I love the most and then going back to the United States with them. They finally arrived, and we all embraced and began to chat upon first glance. That marked the beginning of two weeks of an incredible vacation.

Our family awaits the arrival of the pizzas and the start of
the big game, and I look slightly drunk on enthusiasm

We started with a few days in the Community of Madrid and the near proximity. We visited Felipe II's spartan monastery and palace known as El Escorial, drove up to my school and walked around (and laughed about the Spanish curse words spray-painted on the building), saw the castle in Manzanares el Real, visited the city of Segovia, enjoyed the gardens and fountains of La Granja just outside Segovia, and even spent a day walking around the center of Madrid itself. These days were packed with Spanish history and walking all around to see some stunning sights. However, not every minute was spent on Spain's past: our family also ordered some pizzas and drinks and watched Spain slaughter Italy to win the Eurocup 4 to 0. Multiple of us were in our Spain jerseys, and we were in a crowd of Spaniards who burst into a rousing round of "Yo soy español" ("I am Spanish") to exhibit their pride at their record-setting team. It was such an enjoyable night to be in Spain, and all of us were exuberant that our host country had tasted such sweet success in a sport that means so much to Europeans.

Next came southern Spain where we spent some time in Granada at a hotel right at the base of the hill where the Alhambra rests. I had seen the Alhambra before, but it was a different experience to be there during the hot summer months and to do the "nocturnal visit" to the Nazrid palaces, which looked stunning in the artificial light.

The Alhambra's red and brown earth tones blend
harmoniously with the verdure around it

My beautiful siblings, Amy and Josh, enjoying the waves
of southern Spain

By this point, we were all a little tired and ready for some relaxation on the beach. Our next couple of days were spent along the southern coast of Spain, seeing towns like Algeciras, Marbella, and Tarifa. I had never seen these southern beaches before and loved their gentle yet consistent waves and the white-washed settlements in the rolling hills right above them. We all really enjoyed our tropical repose, but poor Mom was stung by a jellyfish and is still curing the blister and the rash that it left on her calf.

Dad bravely allows the snake to be stuffed into his
neckline and down into his shirt

Our next adventure was one of our wildest--we all caught a ferry across the short Strait of Gibraltar in order to spend a day in Morocco. I was quite simply shocked at how different Morocco was from Spain. Instantly after getting off the ferry, an aggressive salesman kept telling us to hire one of his tour guides. We gave him audience and heard him out, and we ended up deciding to hire one of his guides, which was a good decision in the end. Our tour guide was a seventy-something Moroccan named La Roussi who spoke remarkably good English and Spanish and who showed us all around Tangier. We saw quite a bit of poverty, a snake charmer who convinced three of us to wrap a snake around our necks, and an ancient tree bigger than any I have seen before. It was fascinating, and it really fueled my interest in serving in the Peace Corps to understand better other, non-Western cultures and societies of people who will live their lives in lower socioeconomic brackets than anything I have experienced in my privileged life in North America.

The coastal city of San Sebastián seen from our view
after riding a funicular

After southern Spain, we headed north, stopping only briefly in Salamanca to see its elegant architecture and attend a Mormon church there. The north of Spain was a region to which I had never travelled before, and I found it stunning. No picture of Spain is complete without seeing the lush, rainy, verdant lands of the north. I visited and toured the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela with my family and vowed that, before I die, I will do the Camino de Santiago and visit that cathedral again. We also traveled around the Basque Country and enjoyed once again the greenness of the land and the shades of greens and blues in their seas. It was beautiful and, despite my love for the Mediterranean beaches, probably more to my personal liking than the southern coast. I felt like I discovered a new Spain while in the north, and that was really rewarding.

The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the end of
a long trek across northern Spain for many pilgrims starting in
the Middle Ages

Though rainy, the city of Paris still shines like the jewel it
is, with majestic buildings and manicured gardens all around

After exploring northern Spain, our last destination was Paris. We spent a day driving north across France, and we noticed both that France was quite a bit greener and much flatter than Spain. When we pulled into Paris and got stuck in the metropolis's traffic, we all wondered whether or not the Eiffel Tower would be easily visible. We turned a corner with our vehicle and, out of nowhere, we saw both a beautiful skyline of skyscrapers and the impressive sight of the Eiffel Tower, perhaps the most iconic symbol of that enchanting city. Though I had extremely high expectations for Paris after seeing Paris, je t'aime and hearing from many people how romantic and charming of a city it is, I wasn't let down at all and in fact think the French capital exceeded my expectations, difficult as that was to do. The city is literally crawling with tourists, which was not always comfortable and made me feel a little cliche just being there, but I suppose that's the price you pay to be in one of the most famous and unbelievably beautiful cities in the world. Our family visited Versailles one day and were stunned by the opulence and the grandeur of the palace and its surrounding grounds and other buildings now used to commemorate "toutes les gloires de la France" ("all the glories of France"). We also enjoyed warm Nutella crêpes while looking at the Eiffel Tower, and I felt in that moment so giddy to be embracing so many French stereotypes. We then waited three hours in wind and rain to be able to ascend the Eiffel Tower, yet all of us ended up thinking it was well worth it once we caught the breathtaking views of the majestic city afforded from the elevated vantage point of the Tower.

A great photo I snapped of the illuminated
Tower after having been high within it

In Paris, we also explored the Louvre and enjoyed seeing everything from La Joconde (Mona Lisa) to the enormous painted portrayal of Napoleon I crowning his Empress. We explored the Egyptian treasures for Josh and me, and we even saw things like the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest written code of law that actually predates the Jewish Pentateuch. Paris held other treasures, too, like sea-salt caramel ice cream, a cute, flirtatious boy who worked at the boulangerie where we got our morning croissants, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame, an edifice that inspired Amy and I to watch Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame the first day we got back from our vacation. It was a truly remarkable city, and my desire to go back there, learn more French, and live like a true Parisian is almost burning now. We'll see if I can make that dream come true.

Notre Dame, the city's central cathedral

Returning home has been so wonderful. The denizens of Laramie are extremely warm and open people, and it has been great to take runs in the streets I know best and just spend quality time with my family members and loved ones over meals, movies, workouts at the Recreation Center, and the like. I will miss Europe, but I'm also happy to be home. I know I will go back when I want to, and that fact consoles me. Thank you everyone for accompanying me and supporting me on my sojourn in Spain. I'm now back in the United States for the foreseeable future but know that my life journey will not end, and I will likely continue to update this blog, even if I change it's title and background image to reflect the fact that I'm no longer living in Spain. Thank you for reading and au revoir.

Sevilla and Bullfighting

My friend Ryan is a Fulbright scholar in Sevilla, though his scholarship is not for teaching but is rather a dual performance/research scholarship, and Ryan's passion is flamenco. Flamenco is a uniquely Spanish form of dance characterized by many recognizable tropes, including the long, often black and red dresses of the women (known as a bata de cola); the classical guitar that strums minor key but rhythmical chords; the people clapping their hands in the background to the beat (palmeros); and most centrally highlighted, the dancer who uses rapid, successive foot taps, gyrating wrists, and snapping fingers to express a world of emotion with their body and face. It is a very Spanish form of dance and figures in many caricatures and stereotypes of Spain.

The cathedral was too large and occupied too many square
meters to capture all of it within one photo on my camera

Ryan had a flamenco performance last weekend, and knowing that I wanted to come to Sevilla to see a city of so much renown and historical import, he invited me to see him dance and spend the weekend in Sevilla, and I happily accepted. I caught the most economical form of transportation (the bus, which is also the slowest method of arrival) to Sevilla on Thursday afternoon and arrived late Thursday night to Ryan's smiling face waiting for me in the bus station. The next morning began my official tour of the city. Ryan had to spend a bulk of the day preparing for his event that evening, so I took it upon myself to see the things in the city that interested me and struck me as worthy of visiting during my limited time. Fortunately, much of Sevilla's touristy gems are located right within the center of the city (which is true for many cities, I suppose), so I headed to the central plaza where I was greeted by one of the most stunning cathedrals I've ever seen in my life. Spain is simply a land of incredible cathedrals, and though some of my Spanish friends tire of these "predictable" churches, they never cease to astound me, probably because I'm an American and wasn't raised in a society in which a gigantic Gothic cathedral can be expected in any given city of a certain population. This is why Europe is so intoxicating and pleasantly overwhelming to an American: it's steeped in history to the point that you can almost become inured to just how ancient and marvelous everything around you truly is. I, for one, am not hardened to it yet, and that is why my poor readers have to endure my descriptions of cathedrals every week that I post and my excessive use of the words "intricate" and "stunning." Trust me, though, these cathedrals really are intricate and stunning. :)

The elaborate archways and entrances to
cathedrals are always enthralling to me

The cathedral was a stunning edifice, so full of rooms that it actually required a chunk of time to experience it properly. Unbeknowst to me, one of the two places that claims to be the final resting place of Christopher Columbus is the cathedral in Sevilla, so I stopped and paid homage at the mausoleum where one of history's most important people rests. Columbus is the reason that the principal languages spoken in the American continent are Spanish, Portuguese, and English rather than nahuatl and quechua. Columbus and his maritime endorsement from Isabel of Castilla is the reason that Spanish is spoken in around 20 countries in the contemporary world. Columbus is the reason I'm a white, anglophone American. This man shaped the course of history, and it was stunning to be beside his beautiful grave and attempt to consider the truly unfathomable reaches of his fortuitous and accidental discovery.

One corner of the magnificent cathedral is a famous tower called la Giralda, once used as the prayer minaret when the building was a Muslim mosque before the Christian reconquest of Spain. Visitors are allowed to ascend the tower, and the view of Sevilla from on top was fascinating because the city, for all of its charm and history, is not a gem of European structural design but rather looks like a somewhat crammed city where a Mediterranean people try to survive the scorching estival heat. Southern Spain is quite different from that of the north, and the Muslim and African roots and influence absolutely survive to this day.

In that central plaza was also a square building known as the Archivo de Indias, or the general archives of the "Indies." It is the single most important research archive of information on the conquest and settlement of the Americas by the Spanish empire and boasts a fascinating collection of documents, including handwritten letters from Columbus to the Spanish Crown at the time (Isabel and Fernando), correspondence between Felipe II and his New World viceroys in which he explains exactly how even the minutia must be executed in his empire's new land, and other things of the sort. This was history at its finest--overwhelming, perplexing, and explanatory.

That evening, Ryan had his performance. The female dancer who went before him is a passionate and fabulous dancer, and I felt like it would be difficult to follow her and attempt to fill those (flamenco style) shoes. Ryan, however, was absolutely the star of the spectacle. With his feet moving a mile a minute and his torso and hands alternating between slower motions of feeling the rising and falling of the music and then sudden, graceful actions at the height of the passion, it was quite the show to watch. All of the audience members, myself included, shouted "anda," "ala," and "olé" multiple times as his art moved us to verbal ejaculations. It was a great show, and afterwards Ryan, his cool cousin Kara (more on her later) and I went out with his Sevilla friends and flamenco cohorts to celebrate.

Though the photo quality is poor and the picture fuzzy, this
highlights how dynamic flamenco is and how much it needs
to be felt and experienced live and firsthand

 Once Ryan was finished with his performance, he and his cousin Kara were able to spend the rest of their time with me. We went to the real alcázar (royal stronghold) that was built in the Moorish architectural style, and it was unexpectedly fantastic. I was so impressed that I still maintain that it rivals Granada's Alhambra and truly is a close second, though it doesn't get even a quarter of the mentions that the Alhambra does.  



Open-air patios with shallow ponds, accentuating flora, and
millions of small, glimmering azulejos (tiles) make for
beautiful spaces in Muslim architecture

Sevilla is also home to the most beautiful plaza that I have ever seen, called the Plaza de España. It was built for an enormous art and culture exposition that Sevilla hosted more than a hundred years ago, and it remains as a tranquil, beautiful monument just a brief walk away from the center of the city in a placid, verdant park. By the way, if it looks familiar to you, it's because Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones filmed it for one of its scenes! Yup, that's right, folks. This plaza in Sevilla was used for a scene when Amidala and Anakin Skywalker are on Naboo. Check it out by clicking here. (The clip is dubbed in Spanish, like many foreign films in Spain are, which is why some Spaniards believe they struggle much more than other Europeans to learn foreign languages.)

Once I had said good-bye to Ryan and caught the bus back home on Sunday afternoon, I had a ticket to see my first bull fight here in Madrid. I went alone and sat alone, and given that the enormous bull ring (called "Las Ventas") was not even a quarter sold out, there was no one sitting next to me at all. A bull fight is a very ritualized process in which six bulls are killed in a systematic, colorful, ceremonial way. The bull is first let loose into the ring where about six men with shiny pieces of thick cloth (called a capote) induce it to run between them by making noises and waving their pink capotes at it. Next enter two men on heavily protected horses. These men have long spears, and they are given a few minutes to hit the bull. When they spear the bull, he gets angry and attacks the horse, and two horses in my show were knocked over. The poor horses are totally blind-folded so that they don't run from the angry bull, and it was sad to see such a majestic creature knocked over and blind on the ground.

The poor horse is largely defenseless on the ground. The
bull has to be distracted so that the men in red can lift the
horse up and remove it from the ring.

The bloody bull receives its fatal wound from the colorful
matador, whose sword is deep inside the bull's entrails

The bull now has a long strip of bloody hide on its back due to the spears. Next come a series of bull fighters whose job it is to run to the bull with two small, colorful spikes, jump, and implant the pikes into his back. Oftentimes the spikes stick in his back, and oftentimes they fall out. Once these spikers are done, the matador, or killer, comes out. He has the red capote and a sword, and he is the typical bull fighter image that we think of in the United States. He taunts the bull, which is very bloody and weaker by now, and wins the audience's applause. Then, when he's ready, he uses his capote just right so that he can approach the bull head on and plunge a sword through its back down to its heart. There were three matadores in my show who each had two bulls a piece. Two of them were pretty bad at the mortal sword plunge and had to try multiple times before their bulls expired. One of them "lost" to the bull and the bull scooped it up in his horns and threw him to the ground, and the crowd all gasped and stood to its feet. The bull then slowly staggers and eventually collapses to the ground where it is stabbed once again to make sure it is dead before its body is hauled around the ring and then out by a pack of horses.

My opinions, you ask? I think I can say that I am slightly against the practice. At the end of the day, it is the torture and slow killing of an animal, even if it is shrouded in spectacle and sport. The bull spurts blood out of its mouth and gets its back and guts stabbed repeatedly for about half an hour before it finally dies of blood loss, exhaustion, and punctured heart and lungs. If my description sounds gross, it's because it is gross. The thing is, though, if we eat chicken that is given hormones to make its breasts larger, so large that it can't stand on its feet, and then we have to clip its beak because its so miserable in its poopy-smelling, crowded cage where no light ever penetrates that it pecks its own flesh, is that much better? Is it much better to tie up a baby cow so that it can't even move which will mean more tender veal on our plates when we slaughter the young thing that never even had a chance to move? I guess I think we need to be consistent about our beliefs. Bull fighting is animal cruelty for sure, but if we oppose bull fighting, we should also oppose other forms of torturing sentient life forms. I don't oppose eating meat like I used to because I think it's part of the cycle of life and a nutrient source that can be healthy for humans. But we're an ethical creature with a capacity to philosophize and to love, and I think we should raise animals in a healthy, natural way and then slaughter them as quickly and then painlessly as possible. There's my soapbox for the day! I've opined, and I hope you do, too, even if you disagree.

Despite the fact that I think I'm slightly against bull fights, I have no regrets about seeing the one I saw. It was fascinating and made me feel uncomfortable in the best of ways. I kept thinking that this was the closest I would ever get to understanding Roman gladiator battles (which many anthropologists think were the predecessors and origin of the bull fights) or bear and bull baiting done in Elizabethan England during Shakespeare's day. I learned so much and am grateful I went.

A week from yesterday, my parents and my two youngest siblings come to Spain for summer vacations, and then we fly home to the good ol' US of A! I can't wait to give you all enormous hugs!

Benito's Barbecue, Franco's Old House, and the Beginning of the End

The period of despedidas, or "good-byes," has officially begun. My good friend Colin, with whom I traveled to Salamanca, left a couple of weeks ago to work in the Chicago area for Teach for America. Kathleen left about a week ago to begin a law-related job in Texas. (The next sentence is no longer true since I edited and published this post the following day.) It is 1:30 AM here in Madrid, and though I work tomorrow, I have been up all afternoon and evening helping Ali do her last packing, recycling, and cleaning. She and I just said our last good-bye, as she flies out tomorrow morning to begin working on the Obama campaign in Colorado. The end is truly here, and the formal farewells are driving that point home to me.

Though beautiful and interesting, the storks can cause
problems and be a nuisance due to the noise they create,
the food (animal guts and insects) that they drop, and the
weight of their large nests on the old church roofs

To take the fullest advantage possible, I have led a busy social and traveling life as of late. First of all, I went to visit Benito, his wife Nichol, and their two adorable children, Paula and Martín, in their new house in Soto del Rey, a nice, quiet town in the north of the Comunidad de Madrid. As always, Benito and his family treated me like royalty. Benito's wife is an incredible cook, and we ate a dense, moist cake that was to die for; fresh bread; a nice salad; and a paella so enormous in proportion and so spectacular esthetically that it was truly a shame to eat it. It was one of the best paellas I've ever had, and given how much pride Spaniards take in their paella, that is really saying something. Benito gave me a tour of the town, and he showed me the town's church that is covered in storks' nests. Many towns in Madrid house these enormous nests and their odd, partly elegant and partly awkward builders.

The "German Brewery" that Hemingway frequented, in Plaza
Santa Ana, which also houses statues of Federico García Lorca
and Calderón de la Barca, two of Spain's all-time best
playwrights. It's a very literary plaza, indeed.

My French-Canadian friend from New Brunswick, Mathieu, and I also have been able to hang out a couple of times before his cousin arrives and then he returns to his home in eastern Canada. Since I have long wanted to go into the brewery that was among Ernest Hemingway's main haunts when he would travel to Madrid, Mathieu entertained my desire and we went inside and had a great time. He and I were also able to go into the Prado Museum together, and though we were slightly distracted away from the artwork since we wanted to catch up and therefore tried to do both art appreciation and friendship building at the same time, I nevertheless saw a room or two that I had missed in my multiple visits there before and was impressed, once again, at how stupendous of an art museum it is. I will miss it dearly next year. It's not everyday that you get to live within walking distance of some of Europe's finest art from the Middle Ages onward.

A haunting painting in the Prado Museum of an auto de fe, a Spanish Inquisition trial
held right here in Madrid's central Plaza Mayor

The Palacio Real de El Pardo and the manicured gardens
outside of it

Having had my interest piqued last week at the enormous monastery and cross built by Franco at the Valley of the Fallen, I decided to pursue the Franco topic a little bit further, much to the half-jocular, half-serious dismay of one of my teachers. (I assured her I wasn't a neo-Franco fascist, and I think she believed me.) I went to the royal residence where Franco lived during his dictatorship from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 to his death by natural causes in 1975, a relatively lavish but slightly isolated palace called Palacio Real de El Pardo. El Pardo was originally built by the Habsburg monarchs in the late 1500s to be used as a palace for hunting, given its strategic location in a sylvan area of the Comunidad de Madrid. The sumptuously wealthy monarchs ruled from other castles of theirs elsewhere but used this palace for their excursions into the woods to pursue game and try their skills at marksmanship and archery. The palace was beautiful, and a sizable portion of it is oftentimes not available to the public because it is currently used as a reception place for foreign heads of state, many of which have left autographed photos and comments in an interesting guest registry book. Some of the rooms evinced a clash of cultures and centuries, I thought, like a room built by the Bourbons in the 1700s that nevertheless had a modern plasma-screen television, for example, or another amenity straight from the 21st century. The most interesting part of the entire tour, however, was the Franco suite which, curiously, has been left just the way that he used it during his lifetime. Equipped with a personal theater in addition to the other predictable luxuries (bathroom, kitchen, and such), the strangest thing about the suite to me was that Franco and his wife slept in separate beds even though it was well-known that he was entirely faithful to her (not a common trait among Spanish aristocrats, many of whom fathered hordes of bastard children). Also strange was the fact that he kept the dried, skeletal hand of Saint Teresa in an elaborate box beside his bed, just like superstitious Felipe II did during his reign, as well. Catholic relics are fascinating. A rotten hand by your bed? Regardless, it was a great tour.

I always enjoy different forms of media and art, and though I sometimes intentionally follow a trend in my consumption of art, I oftentimes just let myself flow with whatever I find or whatever turns up. However, by coincidence, I had a week in which most of my media was somewhat intense and racy. To begin with, after having an enjoyable evening with Kelly, David, and Félix, David lent me three films by Almodóvar. Almodóvar is one of Spain's best film directors. He started producing his edgy films in the 80s, after the fall of the Franco dictatorship, as part of a movement called the movida

madrileña, a time when Madrid indulged in the excesses of drugs, sex, and partying that were prohibited under the former conservative regime. Almodóvar is a product of this time, and it appears constantly in his films in motifs that become almost predictable. I watched both La mala educación (a pun on Bad Education and Bad Manners) and  La ley del deseo (The Law of Desire). In La ley del deseo, Antonio Banderas is a jealous gay lover who goes to drastic lengths to be with the artsy, promiscuous film director with whom he's in love. In La mala educación, Gael García Bernal (who starred as Che Guevarra in Motorcycle Diaries) is a cross-dressing prostitute who avenges the death of his transsexual junky sister who was raped by a priest when she was a little boy. The movies are actually quite brilliant and much more complex than my reductionist synopses give them credit for, but they are intense, slightly kitschy, and turn many Spaniards off because of how excessive they often are in their portrayal of drugs and sex. I also went to see Shame with Ruth, the mother of the family to whom I give a private English class each week. We chose Shame on a whim, and it recounts the sad tale of a man addicted to sex. He is incapable of expressing intimacy and instead prefers prostitutes. He is so consumed by his need for pornography and orgasm that he neglects his weak, needy sister, is less efficient at his job, and gets beat up for saying lewd things to unavailable women flanked by their boyfriends. It was a sad movie and had a shocking, gruesome end that was hard to watch. Lastly, I went with James, the Brit with whom I work, and his Canadian girlfriend, Melissa, to a show called El agujero ("The Hole"). It was part comedy, part musical, part acrobatics, part cabaret. It was actually a brilliant production even though I had never seen anything like it and really only agreed to go as a gesture of politeness to James for having invited me. Having my feminist fenders up, I was surprised that the most body objectification and nudity in the show was male. It was interesting, to say the least.

In one hour I catch a bus down south to go to Sevilla, the heartland of flamenco, and then on Sunday, right after I return, I've purchased myself a ticket to see a bull fight. I'll be embracing some Spanish stereotypes and seeing what I get out of the experience! And a month from today, I'll be flying home. Can you believe it?