To Iberia And Beyond

Nachos and Popcorn

Last night I made nachos with Melanie. Although Spain is a Spanish speaking country (shocking, I know), Mexican food is not common here. Before I came here, I knew Spanish cuisine wasn’t like Mexican cuisine at all, but I still thought that Mexican food would be readily available here as we live in a globalized world with lots of immigration and as immigration between nations that share a language is higher than between nations with different languages, I imagined Spain would receive a lot of immigrants from Mexico. I was wrong.

There is one Mexican restaurant in Salamanca and I’ve heard mixed reviews about it. There are two “Mexican” restaurants within two blocks of each other on M Street by Georgetown.  I’m an East Coaster so my definition of what is Mexican food is different than that of West Coaster, Texans and probably Mexicans. I consider burritos, nachos, fajitas etc of any variety to be Mexican food, which means I count Chipotle, Qdoba and the like. I’m not saying they are the best Mexican food I’ve ever had (that would probably be Cactus Cantina), but its Mexican food. I’ll admit I have no idea what’s the difference between Mexican food and Tex-Mex. I’m guessing the amount of beef.

The lack of Mexican food is not just reflected in the lack of Mexican restaurants here, but also the availability of ingredients needed to cook said food. There is only one supermarket here that has tortilla chips, and their selection is very limited. Before this discovery, I had lamented the lack of corn chips in Spain to Melanie and several others. They point out that there are Doritos here. I’m sorry, Doritos may be made of corn but they are not tortilla chips. I was at a party and people were eating guacamole with Doritos….the horror, the horror. Melanie surprised me earlier this week with a bag of honest to goodness corn chips she found in a supermarket. I took that as a sign that I needed to make nachos to share with this strange land.

There are some linguistic difficulties when searching for nacho ingredients in Spain. First off, you can’t ask for tortilla chips as tortillas here are about an inch and a half thick concoction of egg, onion and potato…think thick omelet (which is a tortilla Frances here). Secondly, salsa in Spanish means sauce. If you ask “where can I find salsa?”, people will ask you what kind of salsa you want, which ranges from pasta sauce to stuff you use to baste a turkey. Also, since nachos don’t exist here, nacho cheese doesn’t exist either. This made selecting the cheese quite and adventure, I eventually settled on cheddar that was sliced for sandwiches. Finally, I have no idea what sour cream is in Spanish, nor can I describe it adequately, so it was sour cream-less nachos.

I spent 15 Euro on two bags of tortilla chips, a can of black olives without stones, cheddar cheese, salsa, guacamole, refried beans and a liter of OJ. There was only one size jar of salsa and it was tiny, it was about the size of a stick of butter, it was also more than three Euros. The fact that nearly blew my mind was that salsa was more expensive than guacamole; it is the opposite in the States. This really messes with the whole nacho topping balance since it’s cheaper to be guac dominated than salsa dominated. It would be an amazing development if the guacamole in the store was good and not liquidier than ketchup. Avocados are a little pricey here, but plentiful, next time I will make my own guacamole. We had a little cheese difficulty as there was no block of cheddar, and even if there was, we don’t have a grater, so we ripped up sandwich cheese slices. It ended up being a good lesson in chemistry and how more surface area makes it easier for matter (in this case cheese) to change its state (from solid to liquid), which is to say it didn’t melt so well.

But in the end, it was delicious. Melanie had some trouble at first since she didn’t understand the nacho eating procedure (hands are key, cutlery is ridiculous and napkins are a must) and she had also never had a nacho before so the sensation was very new to her. While eating I realized how much I had missed the taste of spicy, which doesn’t exist here (patatas bravas don’t count).

After nachos, Melanie’s Brazilian flat mate, Sheila, decided to make popcorn from the kernel. This led to a surprising cultural exchange. I asked where for butter and salt, Melanie asked for the sugar, and Sheila brought out ketchup for herself. I learned that in Brazil popcorn is eaten with ketchup and usually mayonnaise and that in Brazilian movie theaters you there are ketchup and mayo dispensers for this purpose. Neither of the girls had heard of the concept of putting melted butter and salt on popcorn, which for me as an American who has worked for a movie theater (oh the Narberth Theater, fond memories), was very odd. Melanie was extremely shaken by learning of these two other methods of popcorn eating, almost as shaken as when she learned that there are many versions of Monopoly and that the original does not take place in Paris. For Melanie, popcorn is always with sugar or caramel. I didn’t suffer too much culture shock from learning that as we have caramel corn in the US too. Melanie decided to be brave and try popcorn with ketchup (I refused) and reported that it tasted “like popcorn, but with ketchup.”  

Next time we go to the movies, I’m getting popcorn.

p.s. This post is longer than the last paper I had to write for class and I also wrote this in a fifth of the time it took me to write my other paper. I guess that reflects on the facts that my command of English is far stronger than my command of Spanish, that it’s easier to recount a story than to craft an essay and that I have a strong passion for Mexican food.

p.p.s Melanie wrote about this experience too in her blog (in French). The tittled sums up her sentiments pretty well - Gastronomic Traumatism.

The Rest of the Galician Adventure

After our first trip to the Cathedral, Melanie, Santi and myself met up with our couch surfing contact for a cup of coffee, which in Galicia comes with a free tapa, which is awesome. However, the tapa had tuna in it which neither Me, Melanie nor our vegetarian couch surfing eat, oh well, at least it was free. We then dropped our stuff off of at her flat, cooked some dinner and then headed out to a bar to hear some traditional Gallegan/Celtic music. Lots of violins, spoons, cellos and small accordion-like instruments were involved.

 

The next day we headed to the nearby beach at Villagarcia where we soaked up the sun for the afternoon and then headed back to Santiago to go to a traditional Gallegan/Celtic concert at the conservatory of the University Of Santiago De Compostela with another couch surfer. He was a little late and apologized explaining he was planting trees all day. I immediately forgave him. His job is to care for a nature reserve close to Santiago, so while he lived too far from the city to be a convenient for us to surf on his couch (I’m new to the program so I’m not 100% sure what’s the vocab) he still showed us around and told us about the concert. In the concert, there was a band of people playing gaitas (Gallegan bagpipes), a choral group and a group of people playing an instrument I’ve never seen before. It looked like a cello you put in your lap, turn a crank and pluck strings and keys to play. Somehow, it sounded like a bagpipe. I asked our friend what was the instrument and he said he had no idea either. That just goes to show that not all traditions are well known.

 

In our last night in Galicia we decided to stay in, rest and watch Braveheart. I think they should have had the dubbers speak with Galician accents since it’s also Celtic, but they just spoke with normal Spanish accents. Melanie said that the Princess’s friend spoke French with a Parisian accent while the Princess spoke it with a Spanish accent. I’ll admit Wallace’s “They will never take OUR FREEDOM” speech was not as inspiring in Spanish. It was a good time and ends up the movie is one of our mutual favorites, maybe it’s because both of our cultures have a history of fighting the English.

 

The last day we went to mass too late to see the giant incense swinging thingy, but we did end up seeing the hostia (the host), which was a fitting ending for a weekend that was la puta hostia. On the bus ride home, we passed the time by eating the cake of Santiago (like a crumb cake with pecans) and talked about Harry Potter,* an excellent end to an excellent weekend.

 

And I forgot to mention earlier, but the seal of A Coruña is badass.

*In the French version of Harry Potter, the Beauxbatton students speak with British accents to denote that they are foreigners. Also, the only spell whose incantation changes is the Patronus spell, no idea why.

oh and I have no way to ease into showing this picture, but ends up Waldo is named Wally here. Go figure

The Coolest Thing I've Learned in Spanish So Far

Duct/Duck tape in Spanish is "cinta Americana" (literally, American tape), because it is the strongest tape there is.

Also I need to think about how I come across before I talk more often. Today I was walking to class and I heard a British girl and a Spanish guy talking about the color of something. She was trying to say copper, but didn't know the word. She said it was the color of "an American 5 cent piece," and I turned around to correct her saying that the penny is copper, not the nickle.

She thanked me and then after a second told me that we had met a month ago when I did the exact same thing. Maybe I should be less of a creepy Spanish-English dictionary.

Oh well, and I promise the next post will be about the rest of the Galicia trip.

Carter: Hero or Superhero?

We interrupt these posts about Galicia for some breaking news.

Using my keen sense of direction and ability to speak in Spanish I have recently rescued two groups of Brits. The first was when I found a lost elderly British couple “on holiday” who were looking for the convent that’s across the street from my house. I gave them directions in English and as we parted ways the woman said, “Thank you, and your English is rather good.” I said, “Thanks, it should be, I’m American.”

Later that day I saved a group of 14 year-old British girls from two prepubescent Spanish boys. I was walking to Melanie’s house by way of Plaza Mayor when two 14 year-old British girls I had met earlier this week (when they asked me for directions) approached me and asked if I would help them. They explained that two Spanish boys were bothering them and their friends but they couldn’t get them to leave or tell them to buzz off in Spanish since they don’t know any Spanish.

I walk up to the two baby-faced Spanish kids who are sitting on their bikes by the girls and I give slap on the back and have the following conversation in Spanish (translated to the English slang equivalent, not literal translation)

Me- Ok boys, leave the girls alone.

14 year-old Spanish Boy- But they’re hot and foreigners love Spanish guys

13 year-old Spanish Boy- Yeah, don’t ruin our game

Me- look dudes, you don’t want anything to do with British girls, they aren’t worth the effort

14- They keep their legs closed?

Me- Hahaha, you know where it’s at. But yeah, British girls aren’t easy.

13- But that blonde has some great melons.

Me- Guys, I’m sorry, maybe try some American girls. They’re worth the effort.

14- Better at f****ing or easier?

Me- I’ll let you figure that out on your own.

14- Where can we find American girls? Can you introduce us to some of your friends?

Me- Head over to *random bar* that’s a big American hang out, and no, I’m not introducing you to my friends.

13- Wait, are you their (the Brits) teacher?

Me- Nah, I’m an American, English-speakers stick together

14- Aha! They’re your (the closest English equivalent is a bad word, but it rhymes with “those”)

Me- Yeah, so it’s time for you to peace out and leave us alone.

13- You must have a lot of game

Me- It’s the blue hair. See ya guys around

They then leave and the British girls ask me to explain what just happened since none of them speak any Spanish. After laughing a bit I told them what I said and they thanked me profusely. They then asked if I wanted to come to their Salsa class with them. I said no and continued my way to Melanie’s house.

Just another day in the life.

Great Galician Adventure Continued: The Cathedral

In the second part of our Galician get-away, Melanie and I went to Santiago de Compustela, one of the holiest places in Catholicism-which neither of us practice. Santi, the friend of the girl we stayed with the first night, drove us to Santiago and explained the relationship between Santiago and A Coruña. A Coruña is a whole lot bigger than Santiago as it is an actual city while Santiago is a large town with a cathedral, a university and a dead apostle. So although A Coruña is richer, more strategically located , more populated, and has more culture than Santiago, it is not the capital of Galicia and it gets very few tourists since Santiago siphons them off. It's sort of like the relationship between New York City and Albany if New York actually cared.

Santiago is what it is since its cathedral possesses (or claims to have) the body of the apostle James The Greater (huh, evidently there were TWO Apostles named James, who knew?). So it is the final point in the Camino de Santiago, the Walk of James, which is a long pilgrimage (as opposed to all those short pilgrimages you hear about).  The pilgrimage is marked by sea shells and has several routes, some of which start as far away as Brussels (see below picture).

The southern route starts in Salamanca, so my city is dotted with these too...and shockingly enough, I don't have a picture of a Salamancan shell. I guess they're so common here I figured I took it already. But in Santiago they look like this:

So it's really easy to find your way to the Cathedral in the city, but it's hard to find everything else (like the bus station, or the train station).

The Cathedral was pretty as Cathedrals go. It didn't look a whole lot like the National Cathedral in DC, but it looked sort of like the cathedrals (yeah, plural) we have in Salamanca. Inside there was a lot of bling holy shrine to James covered in gold. You can go behind the giant statue and put your head against his and make wishes. At least I think you're supposed to make wishes, I didn't really understand that part. I didn't make my wishes since I was too busy counting the precious stones on the statue. We then went down to see his coffin which was surprisingly tiny. It was more like a large silver box. I'm guessing he was either a very short apostle (unlikely since he was James the Greater), or his bones are dust/laying in a heap.

The other time I entered the cathedral was on Sunday to see the Botafumeiro, but Melanie and I were late so I just saw the tail end of the Mass, which is the part with the host. So I have now been to 2.5 masses.

The Camino is pretty cool. The idea is if you do it you are forgiven of all your sins. You also have a little Santiago passport that you get stamped at the various way points to prove you actually did it. There are three acceptable ways of doing it, on horse, on bike or on foot. I'm told it's most popular to do it by bike. I'm curious to find out how these pilgrims get home since you can't exactly have more buses, planes or trains leaving a city than coming into it. I doubt people walk/bike/horse back ride all the way back home so I guess the buses and stuff are just very empty when they come to town. We weren't there during Pilgrim season so I didn't see that many, but I hear that a vast majority of the thousands of Pilgrims do this for religious reasons, and not cultural ones.

So yeah, I have now been to two of the three holiest cities in Catholicism. Santiago de Compustela and Jerusalem. All I have left is Rome and I've done the trifecta (or should I say the Trinity?). I wonder if Georgetown will let that count for that theology credit I need?

Carter's Great Galician Getaway

I went to Galicia with Melanie for our four-day weekend.

The general schedule: From Salamanca we went to A Coruña where we stayed Thursday and half of Friday. Then we went to Santiago de Compustela. The next morning we went to Vilagarcia to chill out on the beach and then we returned to Santiago for the night and we left the next afternoon. Click here to see the map. Wow, we traveled over 1,000 km.

The full story with anecdotes and observations:

We caught the 5am bus from Salamanca to Galicia where we bumped into a Gallego we met at a St. Patrick's Day party who was returning home to A Coruña to celebrate Father's Day (which was Thursday in Spain). Melanie and I passed the 7 hour bus ride by sleeping, watching the decent Castilla y Leon country side and the beautiful Galician country side, squealing with delight when we saw wind turbines and solar panels (which was very frequent), and English and French lessons. That trip was the first time I had heard her talk in English for any great length and although she is really embarrassed about her ability, we had a pretty good conversation pretending we were at a Gtown party. I taught her useful phrases like, "how's it hanging?" "are you going to get me a drink?" and "do you have a girlfriend?"

We arrived in the peninsular city of A Coruña (still not sure why it's two words, but it is) and we decided we wanted to eat our comida on the beach while looking at the Atlantic Ocean. Ends up it was the hottest day the city has had in a long time and we went the "scenic route" as in it was four-mile walk in the sun with all our bags and empty stomachs. We walked along the Paseo Maritimo which followed the eastern rocky coast and looked out onto the very blue bay. All along the Paseo there is a trolley for tourists that just goes along this Paseo to the beaches. We decided to hoof it instead. Eventually we got to the Tower of Hercules, which is the only functioning Roman lighthouse in the world. Since the city is competing to be Europe's Capital of Culture or a similar distinction (there are a bunch of them) the tower was undergoing renovation so there was scaffolding all along the watchtower. It was still an impressive site though. We picnicked on a bench at the base of the lighthouse looking out onto the Ocean, where I managed to snap a photo of Melanie (a very hard thing to do since she is more comfortable behind the lens than in front of it).

We then headed to the beach to lay out on the sand (neither of us brought a towel, Douglas Adams would be ashamed). I tried to play in the water but it was rather freezing so I decided it would be better to just look at it. As it is a European beach there were varying degrees of toplessness, and I thought that as an American who is unused to seeing public nudity I'd be intrigued or shocked or have some sort of noteworthy reaction, but I didn't. Oh well, sometimes you don't feel culture shock when you think you would.

The entire trip was done on the cheap (I spent 80 euros in total in those four days) mainly thanks to couch surfing. Couch Surfing is a non-organization that connects travelers across the world to share free accommodations. We met up with a fellow couch surfer on the beach and she gave us a marvelous tour of the city. As she was an architecture student she explained a lot about the architecture of the city with its gallerias jutting out of apartments. We went to a Celtic bar and sampled some typical Galician drinks such as Estrella de Galicia and two types of hard liquors whose name I never learned. One was like vodka but with a worst taste (I couldn't finish my glass so Melanie did, sorry America for not representing us properly) and the other was sort of like an Irish cream which was a lot better. We did this in a Celtic bar since Galicia, like Ireland, Scotland and Brittany are historically Celts. This also means Galicia has their own take on bagpipes and lush country side with rolling hills (ok, their Celt origin doesn't explain the terrain, but it's interesting that it's so similar). 

The main Plaza of A Coruña has a giant statue to Maria Pita, a badass. She led the defense of the city against the British invaders in 1589. Lesson of the day, don't mess with Spanish women. The statue depicts her caring a spear with a dead Brit at her feet.  I tried to get Melanie to pose in the same position but she refused. I guess silly tourist poses are more of an American thing.

A Coruña was probably my favorite city I've visited in Spain next to Madrid since it actually felt like a city. There were tall buildings (one of which was the tallest building in Spain until Franco died...or something like that), lots of people, and cars. The place was FILLED with cars by Spanish standards, or it had a normal amount of cars for American standards. I was shocked by the number, especially since their trolley is new and pretty large. Our couch surfer friend explained the that trolley was just for tourists, goes really slow and is practically useless for people who actually live in the city.

That seemed to be a general theme in the city. The previous mayor, who was mayor for decades, liked to "play Sim City with the city" according to the Gallegos I spoke with. He was the brains behind the trolley and, for lack of a better word, the bubble elevator. Things with little practical use that are designed for tourists although the city isn't a big tourist center (that's more Santiago de Compustella's thing, but more on that in a bit). In one of the highest points of the city, which was formally a military base, there are various look out points and a little labyrinth (but no faun). One of the ways to get to the vista is to take the bubble elevator for 3 euro. We drove up instead. 

The problem with the bubble elevator is that it just goes down to a parking lot, not really practical.

There were still some old GIGANTIC cannons in the park. The point was part of a string of military bases to defend the Spanish coast. These guns were so big they fired shells the size of a small french/spanish woman.

Being a tourist, I posed for the typical tourist-with-artillery-picture, something the others didn't understand (I am making a weird face in the picture though).

Near the vista there were three sites of ecological interest that I expand on in Energy Matters. One was a waste-water treatment plant on the coast (which I'm told discharges potable water, which seems like a silly thing to put in the ocean). The other was the coast in general which received a lot of damage from the Prestige oil spill (the captain of which along with some others just received their jail sentence this weekend). The third was a massive hill that used to be a garbage dump. It is now a lovely place with grass and trees and such. A dozen years or so ago it wasn't that pretty. The massive garbage pile had a mini-avalanche (garbage-slide?) which destroyed several houses in the adjacent valley and killed someone. The ground is no firmly anchored through vegetation and it's a city park. The city has won several environmental awards for this and similar actions.

On our second day in Galicia we headed to Santiago de Compustela with a friend of our couch surfer who drove us there while we talked about the Camino de Santiago and the language Gallego. The language is a mix between Castellano and Portuguese. Castellano is what we (non-Spaniards) call Spanish, but calling it that is very polemic since it implies that Gallego, Euskara and Catalan are not "Spanish." It was interesting though that the Gallegos I spoke to about this referred to Castellano as Spanish, I bet if I met nationalist Gallegans it would have been different. I didn't have much trouble reading Gallego, to me it looked like how I write Spanish, pretty much correct Spanish but with spelling errors. It looks like if you took Spanish, changed every J to an X and threw in a few more vowels and switched around a few n's and ñ's. Spoken and sung is a different story, I can sort of follow conversations in Gallego but when we went to a Gallego folk music concert at the conservatory of Universidad de Santiago de Compusela I had NO idea what the singers were singing about. It sounded vaguely like Hebrew.

This entry is massively long so I will write about Santiago de Compustela and the rest of the trip in a separate post. In short my weekend was la puta hostia! Which is the Spanish equivalent of Friggin (but stronger) Amazing. Literally it means "the whorish host"...host as in the eucharist...yeah, Spanish cursing is odd.

Random, Weird, Crazy Day in Salamanca

At 9am today, the day after St. Patrick's day, I had a lab for my Air Pollution class that was supposed to go till noon. I haven't been in a laboratory since sophomore year of high school, let alone a lab in Spanish. Let alone for three hours in the morning. I was not looking forward to it especially as last night I was kept up till about 2:30am coughing (I really hate smoke).

But I woke up on time, had an orange, read some of the 120 page packet I need to read and write a reflection for Monday, and went to the lab on time. I couldn't read the lab technician's handwriting which I thought was going to make following his instructions a little tricky. The first ten minutes I spent silently freaking out about how I had NO idea what was going on or how to do what I needed to do. The lab was to figure out the amount of sulfur dioxide in a sample and we all worked together as a little team. When I figured out that I didn't have to do it all by myself I was very relieved. My task was to put a milliliter of Sulfate Acid in the solution to neutralize possible interference. After being shown how to use the tool I needed to use (which wasn’t an eye-dropper, I know how to use that) I was able to accomplish my task. Then we had to record some numbers and bad-a-bing-bad-a-boom, we were done in two hours. No write up, no nothing. The hardest part was the language barrier.

After the lab, I continued to read my packet by my next class and I bumped into Melanie. We decided to pick up our bus tickets for our trip to Galicia this weekend before they ran out so we headed out which means I skipped class for the first time in Spain. As we were heading to the bus station, we were stopped by a local TV news reporter who was interviewing people in the street about their Father’s Day plans since Father’s Day is tomorrow here (happy Father’s day dad!). She stopped Melanie and me to talk about Father’s Day in France and the US and to talk about my blue hair. So there is a distinct possibility I will be on channel 4 tonight in Salamanca. I’ll keep you guys posted. We then bought our bus tickets and stopped in at the hair salon that dyed my hair to tell my fellow blue haired friend about the interview. She was very excited.

After some chocolate con churros we decided it’d be a good idea to take a walk through the park. But as today was very hot and we had our backpacks I thought it’d be a good idea to drop them off at my house before our walk. Thus, Melanie met Pepi. I had told each one a lot about the other so they were both eagerly expecting the meeting which went swimmingly. I strongly recommend everyone should spend time with a group of people whose strongest connection to one another is how cool they think you are. Never have I been complimented so much in Spanish.

In the park, we bumped into a guy I had played soccer with and so we chatted for a bit and continued our stroll. Towards the end, Melanie started reciting French poetry and I tried my best to remember English poetry*.

After comida, a siesta and more reading of the packet (60 pages left!) I headed to my Social Ecology class. I bumped into some friends twice, which makes me think I’m starting to know people here. I bumped into a friend after he literally ran into a 10-year old boy. The boy can sprinting out of a store and I narrowly dodged the kid, my friend wasn’t so lucky. They are both ok though, just a little shocked.

Interestingly, my classroom has been hijacked by Anti-Bolonia students who are camping out their and not moving. I’m not really sure what they think they’ll accomplish since it’s not all that inconvenient, nor is it that public. It just happens to be very inconvenient for me since I’m not sure where my class will be today. I’m also not sure how this is legal and why they haven’t been removed since it’s inside a school building and not in a public spot. Then again I don’t have the best grasp on Spanish laws in regards to protest, so maybe it’s legit.

-addendum to post-

This day just gets weirder by the moment.

In my Social Ecology class we talked about Eco-Fascism and Colonization (the action, not the computer game). My teacher talked about the Nazis and their desire to kill all non-Aryans for many reasons one of which was to give the Aryans more space. One of the kids in the class asked if it was just against non-whites, and the prof said no, non Aryans. She then said nearly everyone in this class would be gone by their standards and that I, Carter, would be the first to go. I thought she said that since I am a Jew and I was caught a little off guard, but then she shook her had an stage muttered "you and your blue hair."....Somehow I think it's not the blue hair thing the Nazis wouldn't like about me.

Then we talked about Colonialism and how there is a theory which basically states that all former colonies are poor and undeveloped due to historic oppression. I ask what do these thinkers think about the US? And the professor said, "you were a colony?" I kid you not. I said yes we were a British colony, and students chimed in saying but that didn't really count since we weren't oppressed. I explained that in fact we were very oppressed by the British, that's why we revolted. Plus we even sent them a letter explaining how they are oppressing us. They all seemed kind of surprised, I guess Europeans forget the whole part about how the biggest super power was once an oppressed colony. It's funny that they do since we sure don't.

Weird, weird day. And now I'm going to head home to see if I'm on TV or not.

*The only poem I know nearly perfectly is “We Real Cool.” I tried to recite Nothing Gold Can Stay and Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening which didn’t work out so well.

The anti-Bolonia nest

Was I Born A Rambling Man?

This weekend will be a four day weekend (as opposed to my usual three day weekends). I know I should seize the opportunity and travel a little farther a field than I can normally do on a regular weekend but I kind of don't feel like it right now. It's probably because I'm still tired and a little burned from my last trip (which was fun) and cheap. Because a three night trip anywhere means three nights in a hostel (I can't do couch surfing since I don't have a couch to offer) which is around 60 euro. Plus transportation (around 60 euro in bus) and then there is food and stuff in the city.

The things is if I want to fly anywhere in Spain I need to go to Madrid first which adds another 2.5 hours and 15 euro to each leg of the trip. Plus there is a lot more carbon guilt if I fly. So it's looking like it's the bus or train for me. Now the question is where?

I'm saving the South for Spring Break which is in two weeks. So I'm considering Galicia, Pais Vasco, Valencia or Barca. In each of these areas I'll be able to hear another language, either Gallego, Catalan or Euskara. Two of which are very similar to Spanish (I mean Castillano) and the other has absolutely no relation to anything.

If I go to Valencia or Barca I might as well fly since I'll be passing through Madrid anyway. Plus I'd be able to see the sea from both of them and probably go to Shabbat services. If I want to go north to Galicia for the weekend, that's about 7 hours on a bus each way. Luckily a bus leaves at 1am so I'd be able to sleep. In Galicia I can see the Atlantic, and the pilgrimage point of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compustela. I kind of want to go to mass in the cathedral to see this. Plus I've been seeing the sea shells that mark the path of the pilgrimage in Salamanca and Brussels so I think it'd be neat to see the end point. 

I just don't really know what I want to do. I know I should travel a lot when I'm in Spain (that's the whole And Beyond part of this). But the logistics of traveling don't really appeal to me, plus the whole possibility of plans falling through* kind of worries me. C'est la vie. I know I'll be happy when I get there (wherever "there" may be) and that I'll enjoy the adventure so I'm going to just do it.

So lookout (insert place here) here I come!

*I bought plane tickets to visit Marseilles in two weeks, but I forgot to check my schedule. Ends up I have a lab I can't miss that day. Woops, looks like I'll have to go to France some other time.^

^I do a lot of these footnotes don't I? It's odd since I hate using them in academic papers. Then again this isn't exactly academic.

Hiking in the Sierra de Francia

So a German, a Belgian, a Frenchwoman and an American go hiking: sunburn.

Ok, so the joke's not that funny, but neither are the sunburns. Especially since I rolled up my sleeves to get some more color so I'm now burnt to my shoulders (pictures to come). The only one of us who didn't get burned was Melanie, the french/spanish girl. Although her ability to speak English is still progressing, she told me she reads this and understands most of it, so I guess I need to watch what I write.

We went to La Alberca which is in the province of Salamanca close to the Extremenadora border. We started hiking in the Sierras de Francia (which are in Spain, not France, who knew?) around 11:30 and we got back around 4:30.The trail was marked as the hardest trail in the area, I did not know that before we started, but I can easily believe it. I didn't know the word for steep in Spanish, but I do now (escarpado). There was a monestary that we didn't go to since we decided it was too far, but we did look at it from a distance. It seemed pretty. I live across the street from a convent, so I feel I'm satisfied with the amount of monk/nun buildings I see a day.

On the bus ride there Melanie and I had a French and English lesson. In theory I can now say "Look there are cows/pigs/sheep!" Useful for everday conversation. The more French I learn the more I think it's not that hard of a language once you know Spanish, English and come from a culture filled with French mockery. There are a lot of cognates between Spanish and English, which leads to the joke of Americans putting O at the end of every word to pretend their speaking Spanish.* The amount of cognates between English and French PLUS Spanish and French is pretty ridiculous. I bet once I master these three languages that Portuguese or Italian will be a cinch. That's probably how the Europeans can do it: cognates and similar grammar structure. No clue about German though.

We walked around the town a little bit before our hike and it is precious. It looked very 18th century (as opposed to 17th century Spanish architecture, because I soooo know the difference). I found a lot of buildings that were older than the US, which seems to be a general theme in my time in Europe.

On our hike we found a very long line of caterpillars crossing the path (pictures to come). Arnika didn't see it at first and accidently stepped on some of them, killing a few and causing a big traffic jam. They were inching along one by one across the path, but they had some issues keeping straight. I don't hike a lot, but I think I'm relatively in touch with nature, and I've never seen anything like that before. I always thought caterpillars to be solitary, if not hungry creatures. A few hours later when we came back we noticed a pile of smushed caterpillars in the center of the path. They were in a line before, someone must have put them together and stepped on them. Unless they decided to have a mosh pit and moshed each other to death. 

In the end it was a fun excursion, minus the caterpillar masacre and the sunburns. There was talk about coming back and hiking all weekend long, I'm not sure how I feel about that. We'll see.

On an entirely unrelated note, I think I'll head to shabbat services in Madrid this week. I'll need to find a synagogue first. I told Pepi of this and she told me to be careful of strangers....odd advice, but I guess it's good advice. Then she started talking about how Jews are generally nicer people than Spaniards since we know the difference between right and wrong and stick to the right (as opposed to Spaniards, who know the difference but just don't care in her opinion). She then asked me if there were Jewish murderers, theives etc. I decided not to mention Madoff and instead told her about how there used to be a Jewish mafia and Jewish mobsters, but they were always good to their mothers.

*That is, of course, an ignorant attitude. A lot of words end in A or mente or ido or ado too.

I Live With An Italian Stereotype

I was going to write about my recent trip to the mountains, but that needs to be put on hold because I had a very odd past two hours which I need to write about.

Pepi often takes in other students of professors who are here for week long programs. Most of these people are Italian high school students. I think it's obligatory for Italian high school students to go to Spain or something. Anyway, today we welcomed two 17-year old Sicilian girls to our family. During our conversation I learned the following about one of them:

• She likes the mob, says she's not involved but has friends who are and their really nice people...as long as you respect them
• Besides his connection with Hitler, she thinks Mussolini was a great guy and was shocked that I disagree
• She likes John McCain and doesn't like Obama. She also said it's a lie that Obama was poor at one point and she said that he came from rich parents. I asked which one, the Kenyan or the single mother who worked in South East Asia?
• Like McCain, she doesn't know how many houses her family owns, it's more than 4
• I'm not really sure what she was trying to say, but she said my friend Melanie was a prostitute. No joke. She asked me about my friends and I explained to her about Melanie and she said "ah, she's a prostitute!"....no, no she is not. Turns out she meant to say something else
• She also mentioned several times that she hates communists, and then asked me if I am a communist or a fascist . I said "neither, I'm American, I like freedom". 

It's going to be an interesting week.