Hey, slow down!

…and by that, I mean: How is this semester already halfway over? Nine weeks down, nine to go…

I’m in the middle of a six-day weekend right now (well, I have one class on Monday night but I’m hardly counting it). It’s kind of like a mini Spring Break, just a relaxing little time. So far I haven’t done any school work, oops, but I still have 3 ½ more days soooo no pasa nada.

Last night I heard a little kid ask his mom “¿Para qué?” several times in response to everything she said. I guess kids all over the world know how to irritate their parents with their curiosities.

One thing I do not like about Spain: There is pretty much no such thing as a clearance rack. Maybe it’s better this way; I’m certainly less tempted to buy things at full price. But sometimes I just want to go shopping and be able to buy something without making much of a dent in my wallet.

[Dear Mom, thanks for raising me to be a bargain-hunter. Love, Elizabeth]

Some things I DO like since coming to Spain (these aren’t necessarily spanish things but things I didn’t care for much before)

Oranges! They’re just so delicious here! I’m afraid I’ll miss Spanish oranges when I go back to the US.

Cheesecake. It’s still not my favorite but I am acquiring a taste.

Seafood. Maybe because it’s fresher here? Maybe just because it’s set in front of me at lunchtime more often here. Either way, I’m beginning to really like it.

Cauliflower. Pepita cooks it in some way that makes  it tasty. Seems like magic to me.

Olives. I can eat them plain now.

Non-flavored coffee. I still need milk and sugar but without raspberry or chocolate it’s still good!

In Lorca class (I think I did well on that midterm, but glad it’s over with), the most recent topic has been las vanguardias (avant-garde) literature/art. We read this article called “The Dehumanization of Art” (but in spanish) and one of the things it mentioned was that if you don’t understand avant-garde art, you won’t like it; also, if you don’t like it, the most likely explanation is that you don’t understand it.

now just a second.

For Lent I am reading the Catechism. Twenty pages a day not counting Sundays should get me through it with a day or two to spare. Currently I’m one day behind, but there’s lots of time left today. A great thing it pointed out to me this morning that I have never consciously noticed before is that the creed(s) begin with “I believe” and end with “Amen” which is basically a reiteration of belief. Isn’t that nifty how it comes full circle?

anyway.

I think the Church might be kind of like avant-garde art. When I was in high school I wasn’t really into the Church. I now realize that that was mostly because I didn’t understand it. Now that I know it better, I love it! But I would dare to venture that most of the people in the world who don’t like or don’t agree with the Church don’t have a very good understanding of her. I was just pondering…

Well, here’s to a beautiful Saturday! I’ve already been to the park to sit on a bench in the sun reading El Barbero de Sevilla. :) I hope all of you, my readers, have an equally pleasant day.

fie-ya (falla/fire)

Last weekend I got to see some of my lovely friends from TU at the biggest party in the world in Valencia—Las Fallas! The whole weekend was quite the experience, I must say. It started with taking a taxi to the bus station in Granada at 2:30 in the morning. Let me tell you: Spanish bus drivers and bus station security personnel are some of the nicest people I have ever met. They’re very helpful and cheerful, at all hours day and night (in my experience). This was a great help to calming my nerves about my first time traveling by myself in Spain.

During the bus ride I caught my first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea. I’m looking forward to actually visiting the seashore sometime instead of just looking at it through a bus window from the highway!

Nine hours and one cup of coffee later: Valencia! Sky so blue, sun so warm…I was very happy to get off the bus and be there. It’s a good thing I had already gotten over my American sense of personal space, because we were como sardinas en lata* in that crowd. I managed to find Ali and Emily after the Friday mascletá (explosions!) and then had a loooong sunshiney walk trying to find our hotel. Victory at last, 3 key cards por si las moscas*, and a siesta. Then: back to the party! Lots of fallas (giant paper mache constructions awaiting incineration), fried things (i.e. buñuelos—yum!), and at 1:30am the incredible fireworks display, which we watched from unexpectedly close as a result of inadvertently turning onto a street with no outlet and not wanting to fight the crowd to turn back. ¡Qué suerte!

On Saturday morning we made friends with a Spanish couple at the bus stop. They were so nice! Once in Valencia (our hotel was in the suburbs) we met Jordan and Elaine for the daily mascletá, which made for a happy little TU reunion. We walked around with our cameras out most of the day; also Emily’s fam came and it was delightful to see them. We stumbled in on mass at the Cathedral—win—and eventually it was time for the burning of the fallas. We saw some little ones, and a couple of big ones. What a way to party. By then we were thoroughly worn out, and we had a long day of travel waiting for us on Sunday, so we went home [hotel] and then parted ways to go home home [our cities] on Sunday morning.

It was sad to say good-bye again, but the next reunion is scheduled for Sevilla, Easter weekend. I’ll be más feliz que unas castañuelas* to reunite again! :)

Also, for more information on Las Fallas, see my pictures on facebook, and Ali’s blog: http://howispaindmytime.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading!

*I’m practicing using the colloquial expressions that I had to know for my grammar test yesterday, haha!

-like sardines in a can

-just in case

-happy as a clam

Things I’ve learned about Spanish culture that I didn’t know before I lived in it:

Looking back over this week, it was very busy, but nothing particularly noteworthy happened, just a lot of class and class-related activities, so instead of giving you a rundown of the mundane things of my life, I have decided today to share with you some general things that I have learned during the past seven weeks of being in Spain.

Leche [milk]

For some reason I had been under the impression that [cow] milk was not very common here and that I was going to have to miss it a lot. Wrong. I have cereal with milk every morning for breakfast. All right!

Color [color]

I was thinking that Spanish people looked just like any other Europeans, and the Hispanics of Latin America only have darker skin because of the mix with the Native Americans way back in the days of colonization. Actually, Spaniards had darker complexions than other Europeans to begin with, because of the mix with the Arabs who occupied most of the southern part of Spain. Everyone here definitely thinks I’m blond (except my American friends; they still agree that my hair is brown).

Horario [schedule]

I knew that dinner was really late over here, but I never understood how the whole schedule fits together. It’s mostly based on meal times: Desayuno [breakfast] is whenever you wake up. If that’s not super late, then around 12 noon you can have Segundo Desayuno or Mediodía [second breakfast or mid-day] which usually consists of coffee and something snacky, like a little orange or some toast. Comida [lunch; no one really calls it almuerzo] is around 2 or 3, depending on when your family members get home from school/work. Comida is the most important meal of the day, and it is why the Siesta [nap] exists: after having such a giant lunch, no one is in the mood to do much. Not everyone literally takes a nap, but watching TV, reading, simply sitting around, and indeed napping if you want to are quite common. Also, most of the stores close around 2 and open back up at 6 or so. Six to seven-something is time for Merienda [afternoon snack] which in my experience is usually something sweet, and often includes coffee or tea. Anything after 8:00 is fair game for Cena [dinner], which tends to be small and especially among young adults tends to occur at tapas bars. And then whenever you’re tired you go home and go to sleep. …I’m pretty sure I get tired before the typical Spanish person.

Acento [accent]

I thought there would be great pronunciation here in Andalucía, because everyone just speaks Castellano, unlike in other regions where there are entire other languages spoken in addition to “regular Spanish.” Well, the words are the same (in the dictionary), but the accent here… “¿Cómo?” It is not uncommon for a granadino to drop entire syllables off the ends of words, or skip consonants in the middle, or to never make the sound of an “s” no matter where it’s found in a word. When I first got here I was a little worried that I had to ask Pepita to repeat almost everything. Now I just hope I don’t end up being “that girl with an annoying accent from wherever she studied abroad” next year in Spanish classes…

Vosotros [“you all”, informal]

Why don’t we learn how to conjugate into vosotros in school? I know it’s never used in Latin America, but in Spain, you need it all the time! I am learning, slowly but surely, how to work it into everyday conversation.

Besos [kisses]

I thought this was just a quaint traditional thing, but it’s actually legitimately the way people greet each other here. Little kisses that don’t necessarily even make contact—right cheek first, then left—just mean “hello” and “good-bye”.

So that’s a bit of culture for you! Happy weekend!

Being an English Major in Spain has its Benefits

Hello, my wonderful readers! I am having a lovely Saturday morning. I got up and went to the public library to meet some other English majors from my program and a Spanish graduate-student-in-English, Rocío, so that we native speakers could help Rocío edit her master’s thesis. So I sat in a library for about two and a half hours, reading 40 or so pages about the treatment of the idea of imitation in literature from the time of the ancient Greeks through the 16^th century, correcting idiomatic expressions, and pointing out errors in syntactic structure. It was fun to edit something in English again. Then, guess what: She paid us! Today is a good day.

Yesterday IES took us to Córdoba, supposedly one of the warmest cities in Spain, on apparently one of the coldest days of the year. I was pretty freezing all day long (as was everyone else), but it was definitely worth the hardship. We got to see the ruins of the city that was THE powerhouse of Europe right around the year 1000; it had lasted less than a century before it was abandoned, and then the ruins were only found just over a hundred years ago by some British archaeologists who paid (or bribed with candy, ha!) the local kids to find artifacts. Rather interesting, in my opinion.

We also visited the mosque-turned-cathedral in the city center. The Christians basically just knocked down a few columns on the inside, inserted an altar and other necessary furnishings, and converted the outermost areas into chapels. Lots of pictures on facebook…They’re pretty neat, I have to say.

On Thursday night I went back to the UGR choir. Great again. This time, Marianna (the other IES girl) and I invited a couple of the other exchange girls (one from Canada, one from the Czech Republic, and one from Germany) to go out for tapas and then to IES’s Open Mic Night. We had some delicious sangría and good live entertainment (including performances by my friends Hannah and Malachi, and Rob’s medley of everything from The Lion King—yes!). I definitely get better at speaking Spanish when that’s the only language I have in common with the majority of the group I’m with. Imagine that :)

On Wednesday I attempted to use the bus system for the first time instead of walking for 45 minutes to my UGR class. I successfully bought the ticket, with a sympathetic look from the bus driver who could obviously tell I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Then I found out I was on the wrong bus. I blame that on the guy in a UGR sweatshirt who got on it before me. Oh well, my Granadino internal compass got a little better when I got off the bus and walked the rest of the way to class.

On Tuesday morning after class I went back to the Modern Languages Center to return Cannery Row and check out Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens), which I am quite enjoying so far. I also bought myself some Nutella and some fresh walnuts. Together, they make a tremendously excellent combination. And I got some bread and cheese, because I was out of those and at-home dinner was looking pretty sad. On the way home I ran into Hannah, so we got ourselves a chocolate-filled/-covered pastry for second breakfast and sat on a bench in the sun chatting for a very long time. Oh the companionship of a kindred English major spirit. Kind of new for me...

Oh, a shout out to my lil sis Mary: Thanks for the plug adapters; very handy.