To Iberia And Beyond

Science, Technology and International Affairs in Spain

I am a STIA major. As part of the major I took a class called STIA-305 with professor Charles Weiss and among many things we talked about various perceptions of technology and how it interacts with humanity. I am generally very pro-technology with the exception of robots which I'll admit sort of make me nervous. But the perceptions of technology are in a few different categories:

The one I am in is the technology/human mix where we can solve a wide variety of problems through both changes in human behavior and technology.

There is the pure tech fix which a good friend of mine embodies quite nicely when he said something along the lines of "I expect to be able to drive and eat meat when I'm older and that technology finds a way to make sure I can do that so we don't die by Global Warming"

And then there is the perception that technology is a problem. That perception seems to be more common here than on the East Coast. I was talking with Pepi, Maria and Chuchi today during lunch about a new type of washing machine that doesn't use detergent, and their reaction (after Chuchi and I explained how it works) was how unfortunate it is that this machine was made because all the people in the detergent are going to loose their jobs. That struck me as a very different opinion you'd find in the States. In the States we are all about new technology and how it can save us so much time/money/energy. We assume that technological advancement is good as it saves people money so they can buy other things they need/want and encourage economic growth that way and encourages more high tech industries which have better jobs.

It is sad when a machine replaces a person's job but in the end it is a plus. When telephones got dials, thousands of operators lost their jobs but later on they retrained and got new jobs and helped the economy grow and the nation get bigger, faster and stronger. Or to have a more known example, it's like when Charlie Bucket's dad lost his job screwing on tops of toothpaste tubs and the factory but later got hired to fix the machine that replaced him, that (plus the fact his son inherited the world's most popular chocolate factory) helped their family achieve a higher economic status than they previously had.

I was told by a Spanish friend that that attitude is more typical of Castilla y Leon and not of the more modern and industrialized parts of Spain so it's possible that this is more of a lesson in small town vs. big city mentality and not American vs. Spanish values.

Carter Goes Wild in Madrid!

Not.

After Melanie left I was so exhausted and ready for a quiet night I went home to the couch surfer place, asked the couch surfer’s roommate if I could stay one more night (the couch surfers left on their adventure that day), she said sure and so we spent hung out for a bit watching Spanish TV. Spain has its own version of “Farmer seeks Wife” which seemed to be less dramatic than the American version. A very cool program Madrid has is called “Madrilleños Around the World.” The program finds people from Madrid who are currently living abroad and sends over a person with a camcorder to follow them around for a day and learn about life abroad. It’s a brilliant idea because it strengthens people’s connections to Madrid, provides a very interesting look at other cities, nations and cultures, and is dirt cheap to film. The only expenses of the show is a camcorder, round trip plane tickets for the “reporter”, a per dieum and some time editing. We watched an episode in St. Petersburg where the camerawoman talked with them about the cold weather, nightlife and followed the family’s little daughter to a ballet lesson. The next episode they went to Bangkok and followed around three different Madrilleños. One was a young Spaniard who is living there for a year or so, another was an older Spanish man who runs some company/auto body shop there, and the third was a woman who works for Cartier jewels in PR.

The highlights were when the interviewer (a girl/lady/young woman about my age) and the young guy were walking through a night market past many prostitutes and she asked him how much a night with one of them costs AND he responded with a price. He quickly added that a friend told him so…nice save and I’m sure his family was watching. The other highlight was when the middle age Spanish man was proudly giving the interviewer a tour of his small factory/auto body shop/semi-sweat shop and she asked him how much the workers get an hour. His smile quickly disappeared and he said something like 8 Euros an hour….yeah right. We didn’t watch the next episode (although I was pretty tempted to) which took place in Texas. I thought it was pretty odd that they made Texas just one episode as the state is bigger than Spain. Oh well. I do think that that interviewer has one of the best jobs possible for a person our age and I can easily imagine Philadelphia doing something like that.

The next day I dropped my bag off at Jessie’s, and wandered around in the vague direction of some museums. In my wandering, I discovered that avocados are amazing food to eat straight, ending my perception of avocados as merely something to be made into guacamole and that every traveler should have a knife for picnicking*.  I went to the National Library, saw an exhibit about Malaria (it’s bad and the Gates^ really don’t like it, saw an exhibit about storing information through the ages (I snickered a little when I saw the same type of ballpoint pen I use for school beneath some exhibition glass) and searched in vain for a bathroom. I did find a stairwell that led to a door that opened to the backside of a rather large bookcase which blocked the fire exit…yay safety. I then went to the Thyssen (the elevator and escalator people) Art Museum. I’ll admit I was shocked to find paintings of New Jersey landscapes hanging up in a European art museum. Then again, it is the Garden State.

I continued wandering in the vague direction of Bacchus for their intercambio night. On the way I saw: The Spanish Church of Scientology

The Headquarters of ONCE, the National Organization of the blind, the people who run the lotteries here, ever since Franco said it was allowed, there is supposed to be a connection to the whole luck is blind thing (although I thought luck was a lady and justice was blind).

 

More parks

 

What may have been the back of Spanish parliament

 

A plaza to Cervantes that included statues of Don Quixote and Sancho

 

And a/the (I don’t know how many there are) “School of War of the Army”

 

That night in Bacchus people were playing Scrabble (jewels was laid out on a triple word score), and we played Taboo in English. The Spaniards were incredibly good at it so now I’m inspired to try my hand at it in Spanish. I also met someone from Montana that night. I was invited to crash at a friend’s place that night since her host family was out of town (shhh, don’t tell them). Her name is Aurora, she is from Chicago and is working on her sociology dissertation about food as a gateway to other cultures with a focus on the US and Spain. She is also a profession chef which, meant I had a pretty darn good breakfast and learned a little about how professional kitchens work. That morning her friend, who just spent several months in Senegal, arrived in Madrid. Many stories were told (forget what Sarkozy says, French colonialism was bad, and governments of poor nations with people starving in the streets should spend money on things other than giant statues) and a very long hot shower (with running water!) was taken on her part. We said our goodbyes as they headed out to find lunch and I headed out Jessie’s house for my bag and to get ready for Passover. 

 

*Or a Swiss army knife that includes a fork and a spoon. I guess a bottle and a can opening are useful too, oh and a cork screw since this is Europe and you can find bottles of wine for less than five Euros. Basically I need something that has those elements and folds up.

^I found out that in Spanish they don’t pluralize last names like we do in English. I learned this through Harry Potter so I could be wrong. But The Weasleys were referred to as “Los Weasley” and the Carrows “Los Carrow.” 

Madrid with Melanie Part 5: Palm Sunnight

And now back to recounting Spring Break, oh and I won't be able to upload many pictures because my camera and computer decided they don't like each other anymore so I can't transfer them

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While walking to the park we were stopped by some guys who asked us “donde esta el chino mas circa?”-“where is the closest Chinese man.” I was very confused, even more so when Melanie gave them directions. I entirely forgot that a “chino” also refers to a convenience store. Not exactly PC. By that time, it was night and by the lake in the park there was a hippie/rasta drum circle and dance party going on. After finishing our ice creams and enjoying the good vibes we decided to head to a different part of town to visit my friend Jessie.

Before that night I had only met Jessie twice before. She is from Washington state and is very good friends with my next door neighbor in New Jersey. I met her when I was sent/went under my own free will, to meet the neighbors who she was staying with for a few days before she headed to Madrid. The neighbors invited me to their New Year’s party (which was the next day) and that was the second time I met her.  She is a pretty cool cat and she is in Madrid this semester writing poetry for credit at her college. She never studied Spanish before coming here and her poetry is in English. I’m not really sure how she pulled this off, but I am thoroughly impressed that she has found a way to do something unique and that she enjoys so much as part of her major.

We met up with her at a bar/library called Bacchus which she said is a regular hangout of hers and where she leads intercambio nights. Bacchus is pretty much a young expat bar. The owner is a New Yorker who has lived in Spain for nine years, the bartenders are Swedes and all the patrons that night (besides Melanie) were Americans. It was pretty confusing to walk into a bar in Madrid and not hear one word of Spanish. The tables turned between Melanie and me, where I became the language master^, it was delicious. The owner wasn’t there, so I feel like I can relatively safely say that my Spanish was probably the best in the room (besides Melanie’s of course). Yes, I’ve studied it for 8 years and lived in Spain for 3 months while the others hadn’t really studied it nor spent much time here, but it was a linguistic victory and I won’t a little thing like reasoning get in the way of me savoring it. We also met two other Jews in the bar which made it three other Jews (at that time) that I had met in Spain: all Americans. I asked them about their Passover plans and one responded he plans on eating a bacon cheeseburger. A few hours later on our walk home, I explained to Melanie about the difference in American Jewry between people who are religiously Jewish and culturally Jewish and people who make efforts to make it clear they are one and not the other°. 

We stopped at a bench and I took this picture. It has nothing to do with the rest of my adventure, but I really like the picture so I wanted to share it with you all.

On our way to the bus station (the metro was closed by then since it was around 2am) we decided to drop in at The Dark Hole to see what the fuss was about. It disappeared. I swear we went to the right place, we rounded the block and the block next to it several times, but it was gone, vanished. I didn’t know a building could do that. A little confused, slightly dispirited and very tired, we continued our walk to the bus station. We eventually caught the 3am bus back home but there was a little snag in our trip. We both fell asleep. The driver woke us up at the end of the line and told us that another bus would be coming in the opposite direction in about 45 minutes…it was 4am. After a few minutes we got our bearings thanks to the maps at the bus stop (we were off my pocket map, traveling in territory unknown). We decided we were close enough to walk home within 45 minutes and that if we didn’t feel like walking further we’d call a cab. Funny thing is that Madrid cabs are missing something every American cab has...

A phone number. Madrid cabs have no phone numbers. What. The. Noodles! It’s an interesting difference between American cabs, however at 4am the strong emotion I felt about this difference was not intrigue. We did see a cab coming our way and so we tried to wave it down. The guy drove past us a few blocks, parked, got out and went inside an apartment building (I’m guessing he was done with his shift). So we walked home, in the end it was only a half an hour and we beat the bus! We got home and then plotzed.  

The next day was our last day in Madrid together which we spent hanging out in the apartment and just chilaxing. At one point, I helped Jessie leave a message for her Spanish speaking-only flat mate about a visitor. Melanie and I then headed to the airport and said our goodbyes*. Drawing to a close my time in Madrid with Melanie that somehow became a story with five installments. Up next, Carter goes wild in Madrid!

^Only a Master of ENGLISH Darth!

°This is not the place to explain that more.

*I think airport goodbyes aren’t as dramatic as they used to be when you could go with someone to the gate. It’s a little anticlimactic to say goodbye to someone and them then go wait in line. 

Bullfighting: a Brutal and Religious Experience

I just watched an impressive force of nature be reduced to a pitiful creature. The bull entered the ring and even in a café hundred of kilometers away, I could feel its presence. It rippled with muscles, it was power. When writers write of the awesome force of nature they usually mean storms, oceans, and indomitable mountains. I had never seen a beast that had impressed me with the same sense of amazement until this day. I have seen many creatures large and small, in cages, in zoos, in pictures or movies. I have been impressed by their size, their uniqueness and intrigued by their existence, I have been frightened by their numbers, their alien nature, their ability to bite, scratch and poison. The verb “to gore” had never meant much to me beyond the vague image of entrails trailing from horns. I had read of the thick padding given to the horses of the picadors, the numerous assistants of the matador and I had always thought that a corrido de torros, what we unfittingly call in English, a bullfight, was grossly unfair. A team of men with swords or spears and a horse against a bull. Steel and human intelligence against horns and bestial brute force. After watching a corrido I realize that the match-up is more even than I thought.

No man should ever attempt to fight a bull alone and after seeing a bull ram into a thick horse and nearly knocking it down, as well as a bull flip a matador, the concept of grabbing a bull by its horns seems to be insanity. There is a reason bull riders in rodeos only stay on for a minute or so, nature is far stronger than a man. Even when bleeding from multiple stab wounds, a bull is still not something to be taken lightly. Seeing a matador stand in front of the bull, with sword and cape at his sides is a striking picture of man’s struggle with nature. This defining moment seems to be the point where sentiments change. The matador challenges the bull with his cape, and leads him around, tiring him out. Man’s struggle with nature becomes man’s dominance of nature. He tauntingly shows his back to the bull that at this time is too weak to continue. The matador continues to show his cape to the bull and urge it to continue. This task becomes more and more difficult as it becomes obvious the bull isn’t here to fight. The bull hasn’t trained in preparation for his final day. The bull doesn’t pause to try and summon up the courage and strength to keep fighting and hopes of “wining.” The bull stops because he is tired, confused and trying to stay standing while his blood spills down his back. This isn’t a boxing match, where it is as much a battle of wills as it is of strength, where the fighters train physically and mentally for their match in hopes of winning glory and wealth. The bull’s only motivation to keep going is to protect his life, a vain effort. There is no pity, there is no surrender, there is just death at the end of the corrido.

Before the end, when the matador decides the bull can’t go on and it just stands there breathing heavily, the matador takes out the espada de luz, the sword of light, to prepare for the finale. The matador lightly stabs the bull in his snout so that he lowers his head for the matador to cleanly end this “performance.” With several spears in his flesh as well as a sword, the bull lowers his horns and looks at the cape of his executioner. With a quick stab, the matador finishes and the bull collapses, finished.

It’s hard to say what a corrido de torros is. It is not a sport or an art, and the Spaniards know this. The reviews of the corridos are in their own section of the newspaper. It’s not a dance, although I’ve heard it described as man’s dance with death. Nor is it a performance although there is an audience. To perform implies a sort of falsehood, a mimicry or impression. The only thing fake in this is the idea that the bull might not be dead at the end, the promise of fairness. Although occasionally the bull is spared, it never wins.

This is a demonstration; A demonstration of man’s dominance of nature. Before when I thought of that phrase I thought of opposable thumbs and of “technology” in the broadest of terms; of us resisting nature and us using it to do our will, of medicines distilled from rare plants protecting us from Nature’s illnesses, of pets, drinking milk and eating meat. I had viewed it in terms of us living with nature, but in control of it. This is similar to pollution as it is a destruction of nature, but the difference is our intent. We do not pollute to destroy Nature, it’s a lamentable side effect. When the matador enters the arena, he is there to kill Nature. Not for food, not to protect himself, but for glory, money and to show that he can.

This is a demonstration, a half-hour long embodiment of Human history. It is a lesson. One man could not survive against a bull. We know this; we use tools, and planning. In this demonstration we even the odds against nature, we become its equal. But then we continue our dominance, our taunting, and our demonstration of our power. We make it struggle when it is spent for our amusement, and then when we can get no more from it; we finish it and then unceremoniously drag its carcass out of the ring with a team of horses. If it was a good “show,” they cut off the ears and tail to award to the matador.

The corrido is no crueler than our history.

The bull suffers and horses with blinders are put at risk, but the sickening part is the enjoyment of the crowd. The sadism of it. My family has a photo of graffiti on a mural of a matador and bull, the graffiti reads “Arte y sadismo no son lo mismo”- Art and sadism are not the same. That is clear, this is not art. This is not something to be watched and enjoyed for its beauty, nor should matadors be praised for their skill. The enjoyment of the crowd, the applause when the matador deftly performs a maneuver is repulsive. Before I came to Spain, my grandfather told me the quote that, “the only beast in the arena is the crowd.” That is far too true.

But the first half can and should be enjoyed, we should be proud of making ourselves even with the might of nature. The second part is when the crowd should fall into a somber silence as they marvel at our cruelty as we make Nature crumble at our feet.

At the end, I have a sense of near religious solemnity, akin to the feeling while sitting shiva. A life was lived, a great struggle occurred, there was suffering and brief moments of triumph, and now it is over. The corrido should not end with applause and trophies; it should end in respectful silence.

The corrido is a work whose two halves have different protagonists. In the beginning, Humanity starts to attempt what seems like the impossible task of dominating nature, but in the second half, it is Nature that struggles. In the first part, the matador and toreros should be honored as they are fighting what at first seems to be an impossible fight. The second half the positions switch and the dominating become dominated. Then we should not honor the matador we should honor the bull. The matador’s task is simple; he is the bringer of the inevitable. The bull is the one struggling against that inevitability.  

The matador is skilled, that cannot be denied, but it is a skill unlike that of an actor or dancer. It’s as a skill like meditation or fasting. It is a struggle with nature, and the self. When the matador gets hit by the bull, he does not come back swinging his sword in a rage, he stands up, breathes deeply and then continues the demonstration. He doesn’t seek to just kill the bull; he does it in a very specific way. While the demonstration isn’t an art, there is an art to it. It’s like a surgeon. Each slice has a purpose, their final products are different though.

I want to watch more. I am repulsed and attracted by it. While the tradition of the corridos is old, what it demonstrates is both ancient and timeless. It is brutal, it is harsh and it is True. It is a glimpse into the cruelty of existence that we don’t like to face in daily life. It is, in the barest sense of the word, Sacred. It is a break from the Profanity which is daily life, the non-Sacred. We stop what we do and we watch the True story of life slowly and bloodily unfold.

I don’t know if that is something we need to see. There are great tragedies and cruelties in life and I don’t know how we should relate to them. Should we hide them and ignore them? Should we peacefully accept them? Should we celebrate them? Should we struggle in vain against them? I don’t know.

I would feel wrong to pay to see it though. You should never have to pay to connect with “the Holy” or “the Sacred.” Paying for that experience monetizes it, it cheapens it. Putting a price on the experience evaluates it and says what its worth. Buying a ticket to watch the event in an arena makes it seem like a show, a performance. This, like Mass or Shabbat services or midday prayers, is not a performance. I’m surprised that watching it on television doesn’t cheapen the experience. I think it enhances it; you can see the muscles on the bull ripple and the matador’s face move as he focuses in on the task at hand. It makes television fulfill its full potential as a medium of communication, it makes television more than the “caja idiota” – idiot box - it makes television a window, a magic mirror. It let me be the unattached observer, not taking part, not being part of the audience in the ring although I was an audience member in a broader sense. It let me be outside and look in, to watch and judge while I was free of blame and judgment. After all, I didn’t pay to see it, I didn’t choose to see it, it just happened. It was hypnotic, and I could only feel right leaving the café, turning away from the demonstration, when someone changed the channel, breaking its spell. 

It should not be preserved as part of the tradition of Spain, as Flamenco or Catalan, but it should be preserved as the demonstration of human history that it is. What should change is our perception of the event, what unfolds on the sand is Sacred and ritualistic, what occurs on the bleachers profanes and cheapens it.

It is a powerful experience, and a brutal thing to watch. It should not be enjoyed like a holiday, it should be observed, like a holy day.

Madrid with Melanie Part 4: Palm Sunday

El Rastro is a giant outdoor market that sells everything from knives, to flags, to car parts. It is several blocks long and was cram packed with people, nearly shoulder to shoulder the entire way. We decided to buy a towel since we both forgot to bring one (once again, Douglas Adams would be ashamed of us) and while we were looking at the wide selection of knives at the market Melanie informed me that she is quiet skilled with a butterfly knife since her father gave her one when she was a little kid: note to self, no more making stupid jokes about the French not being good fighters. After walking around much of El Rastro we found a nice spot and lay down using our bags as pillows and I received another French lesson, and we discussed Haribo. Haribo is a large European sweets company that specializes in sweets of the gummy variety. There was a large Haribo store next to our hostel, complete with person dressed as the Haribo Golden Bear. The name and bear seemed vaguely familiar, but I was almost certain I’ve never had a Haribo product. That shocked Melanie since Haribo is to Europe as Hershey is to the US, but then again she’s never had a kiss so I guess the fact I never ate a Haribo gummy bear makes us even. Now I remember where I had seen the brand before. Wisemiller’s deli by Georgetown sells some Haribo products. At least I think so, if any Hoya wants to double check that’d be fine. I still don’t think I’ve had a Haribo product since I’m not really a gummy man.

 

We went into a café were we discovered something that is strikingly similar to French toast. It is different from French toast as the bread is soaked in milk before hand and it’s cooked with eggs, it is also an Easter food here instead of a brunch/breakfast food (Melanie has never heard of brunch btw, America: 1 France: 0). One thing it does have in common with French toast is its deliciousness. While in the café, I heard a middle-aged American couple having trouble with directions so I decided to help them out. They were from Buffalo* and we visiting Spain for two weeks or so since the husband won an award at work. They didn’t speak any Spanish nor have any plans for things to do and see in Madrid so I helped them order some coffee, told them about Spanish tortilla and helped them order it. They then asked us for ideas of what to see and do in their time in Madrid, Melanie (by way of my translation) recommended the art museums, to which the husband told me that art wasn’t really his thing. Melanie told them about the Escorial (the Spanish Versailles, or should I say that Versailles is the French Escorial) which is also down the road from the giant tomb/subterranean temple to Franco and just a half hour away from Madrid. They seemed to like that idea better; they thanked us for our help and then headed to the Metro. When they left, Melanie told me she could understand their English better than she could understand mine.

We then headed to the Plaza Mayor of Madrid (which is called something else) where we napped, soaked up the sun, and watched Hare Krishnas singing and dancing (don’t worry Mom, I didn’t join them).

Oh and it was Palm Sunday, look palms!

 

Lots of people were walking around holding them and a lot of people were selling them on the streets. I don’t really know what you do with them, I know you burn them for next year’s Ash Wednesday. I have a feeling your supposed to shake it at some point, oh wait, that’s the lulav and etroge, wrong religion and part of the year.

Around 2pm we decided it was time to head to our couch surfer contacts place, eat lunch, put down our bags and sleep. We got to his neighborhood without a problem since we went there the night before, but we had an insanely hard time finding his place. But we stopped to picnic before we searched as the fact that we were tired, dirty and lost on a very hot day was bad enough without an empty stomach. We asked several people for directions and they each gave us different ones. We eventually got their after much searching (it was only about a five minute walk from the metro, it took us about half an hour) chatted with our new found friend for a bit and his Venezuelan girlfriend he met while traveling in Brazil (but of course) who were planning on going on an adventure on their own the next night. After a shower we collapsed on the bed (yes sometimes couch surfers sleep on beds) and fell into glorious sleep. We woke up around 7pm, lounged around for a while, read some of the 7^th Harry Potter together, had some dinner then went to look for ice cream to eat while we walked around the Parque de Buen Retiro (which is in another part of town). Mission accomplished.

This post is getting a bit long so I’ll stop it here.

*I told Melanie about Buffalo earlier by explaining that the phrase: Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo is an actual sentence, although I may be off by a buffalo or two.

Madrid with Melanie Part 3: White Night

That night Melanie and I checked out of our hostel and were prepared to go on our first couch surfing adventure in Madrid. Our contact said he was heading out to party that night, but he wouldn’t be out too long and he’d give us a call when he was done so we could head over and go to bed. While waiting for the call we waited in Puerta del Sol where we bumped into my friend Jessie (more on her later) and I gave Melanie a brief dance lesson and vocal perc lesson (some might say she’s rhythmically challenged, but she’s getting better). The metro closes around 1:30am so we decided to head from Sol to the neighborhood of our contact to wait in a bar for the call. The neighborhood was in the far southern part of Madrid and there wasn’t much around the metro stop beyond some less expensive apartment buildings, nor was anything open. So we sat on a bench and waited for a while and watched the police activity. There were about two squad cars and a paddy wagon with their rotating lights on (they are just blue here, no red) parked on the street in front of us. I wasn’t sure whether I should have felt safer knowing there was such a police presence there or whether I should have been worried that there was a need to have such a police presence there. When the police left around 3:30am and we still hadn’t received the call from our contact we decided we should go back to the center of town where there were more (and theoretically less sketchy) people.

On the long bus ride to the center of the city, we discussed Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games. I’ve never played it before but I have heard about them so Melanie explained the mechanics of these games since she used to play it a lot with her friends from high school. I asked if these are the same friends from high school that I’ll meet when I go with her to France in July (or at least that’s our plan), she said yes. Now I have a standing invitation to play Dungeons and Dragons…in French. There is no way I will not be confused when that happens. I can’t imagine playing a game in France that involves dice with more sides than I can count in French. After a while, she took a nap on the bus while I waited for our stop, enjoyed the scenery and thought “if I were a character in a fantasy world, what race would I be?” You know, deep thoughts at 4am in Madrid.

We got off the bus by the Prado and decided to walk to Sol by way of Gran Via, stopping many times along the way to put down our massive bags. At one point we found a 24 hour store, went in, realized we didn’t need or want anything besides a place to sleep or at least to store our bags and then left. Outside the 24 hour store, there were many women in short skirts, very high heels, waiting in the streets and talking to guys as they passed by. I am pretty sure that what they were doing is legal in Spain (at least I read so in The New Spaniards) but people I ask aren’t really sure. While sitting at a bench on Gran Via we decided we might as well pull a “white night” since it was almost 5am and we still hadn’t heard from the guy and we wanted to be up early to see Madrid’s famous street market. Melanie explained that the term white night is used to refer to nights where people are so doped up on a variety of white powders or pills that they don’t go to sleep that night. We just did it in the not going to bed sense, not in the hard drug sense. The guy called us a little after that decision so we told him that we were going to hang out but head over in the afternoon.

On our way we found the Goth club we looked for on our first night, The Dark Hole, but as we weren’t feeling like clubbing, and the cover charge was 12 euro, we decided to come back the next night, which we were told had no cover charge. We eventually made it to Sol and decided to sit down and people watch in the center of Madrid. Lots of drunk people, some of whom sang, some of whom tried to pick up girls, one of whom came up to us and told us how lucky we are to be young and able to adventure. Around 5am Melanie took out her sleeping bag (like a smart traveler she had one, I don’t) and took a nap while I sat guard. Around 6:30am she woke up again and we tried to figure out what to do since their obviously has to be some sort of advantage of being the first people awake in the city. There must be some line somewhere that we can be in front of. We decided to find a bakery since the idea of fresh baked bread sounded like the best idea since, well…sliced bread. Ends up bakery’s in downtown Madrid are not open on Sunday mornings. Melanie was thoroughly confused by this fact (I was just disappointed), since she says ALL French bakeries are open on Sunday mornings and they are just everywhere in the cities. The streets are just paved with bread in France, sort of like the Fival interpretation of America but not. Since we couldn’t get fresh bread, we decided we’d watch the sunrise. We sat on a bench in another plaza and waited. I fell asleep. I woke up to the sounds of morning traffic around 8am when day had broken. I had no fresh bread, no sunrise but I did have an hour or so of sleep. I was pretty happy with that exchange. We then went to the train station since we were just a few blocks away to find breakfast and bathrooms.

After finishing up my chocolate croissant (supposedly they’re very different in France), I guarded our bags as Melanie went to freshen up and I started to read the 7^th Harry Potter in Spanish (I finished it in Barcelona).  I know I must have looked exceptionally grungy brushing my teeth in the train station bathroom in my hoody, wrist warmers and hat; but I felt like a true college student traveler. I don’t recall my logic, but I remember likening it to the conversation in Fight Club about how you don’t want to go through life without a scar or too.

By the time we were both fed and semi-clean it was 9am and time for us to head to El Rastro, the outdoor Sunday market in Madrid. We had successfully made it through a white night in Madrid! In the end it was just like any other long night of partying in Spain where you are out till 9am, except we had luggage with us, we were sober and we didn’t go to bed at the end. Good times.

Madird with Melanie Part 2: Tres Cantos

After the Prado we went to visit Melanie’s uncle’s home in Tres Cantos which is right outside the city. First, we did a driving tour of Universida Autonoma of Madrid, where another Georgetown program is based. That was odd since I almost studied there this semester. The thing is I wanted to take science classes this semester so I couldn’t go there (as a Science, Technology and International Affairs major it would have been hard not to take a science class). Going to Tres Cantos was a far odder experience as I had once seriously planned to live there.

The summer after my freshman year in college I worked for BP Solar in Frederick Maryland. While working for them I discovered they had another photovoltaic plant in Tres Cantos, Spain. With high hopes (unrealistically high in retrospect), I applied for an internship position at the Tres Cantos facility and spent many hours a day fantasizing about what a wonderful summer I would have living in Spain, especially so close to Madrid. I had figured out my bike route from where I would live (I reasoned I would be able to rent on the rooms at the university which is just down the road from the facility) to downtown Madrid, not just the route I’d take, but I tried to determine how hilly and dangerous it would be (a little hilly but ends up there is a bike path that goes most of the way). I even went as far as to work harder in my Spanish class to bring my Spanish up to the level of white collar office work (I don’t think it’s at that level now, I’d say it’s at the place where I could work in tourism or something that’s more oral than written). I also got the Lonely Planet pocket guide to Madrid* as a gift when I was waiting to hear about the job. I didn’t get the job, so my dream remained a dream and the possibility of ever going to Tres Cantos seemed to disappear. Imagine my surprise when I spent a thoroughly pleasant afternoon with Melanie, her cousin, her uncle and their dog walking in the park at Tres Cantos and playing fetch (with the dog, not the humans).

I had trouble with fetch at first but then I realized the dog only spoke Spanish so I stopped saying “drop it” when it came back with the stick and said “dejalo” –- which is more or less “leave it”-. That worked when said in a firm voice and pointing down. Playing fetch is a lot of fun, I think I’m slowly becoming pro-dog (I’m dog neutral now and I used to be afraid of them). We also stumbled upon an outdoor Galician food festival where I saw large octopi beings stewed. We had a drink, some tapas and of course much conversation. A very relaxing time which was soon followed by a rather interesting night. 

*I’ve ended up using the guide a whoooole lot in my time in Madrid, so much so that the fold-up map is now falling apart from overuse.

Madrid with Melanie Part 1: Much Art is Seen

So much happened on this trip that I’m not sure how to organize it. Should it be chronologically, geographically, or thematically? I think I’ll do it chronologically since for the most part that includes geographically and as thematically would be far to difficult to organize (would visiting the Dali museum be filed under T for tourism, F for Figuras, A for Art, M for Museum or S for surreal?..actually that sounds like a fun way to organize my adventures, but a little too weird.)

The first stop on my adventures was Madrid with Melanie. We got there in the late afternoon so we dropped off our massive bags (her bag was a little smaller than she is) at our hostel first and then go out and explore. Looking for the hostel we bumped into a friend of mine from class who was visiting Madrid with friends of hers, and when we left the hostel we bumped into another classmate of mine. This lead to Melanie saying that I know everyone in Madrid. She has already said that I know everyone in Salamanca -- I don’t but I know enough people who are strategically located throughout the city so it seems like I know everyone. We had a picnic dinner in el Parque de Buen Retiro and afterwards we decided to go find a Goth bar about which Melanie heard a lot of good things. The club is called “The Dark Hole”…yeah….we didn’t find it that night so we ended up going to a bar called “Rainbow” which had pictures of demons painted on its doors. We thought it was either going to be a gay bar or a punk rock bar (or a gay punk rock bar), it ended up being a skinhead bar. Melanie explained to me (a point my cousin Nat also explained) that skinhead does not necessarily mean racists/Nazis. Melanie told me that in France you can (theoretically) tell if a person is a fascist or a socialist by looking at the shoelaces on their military style boots. Red is socialists and white is fascists, hers are red. No one else in the bar had that style of boots, we didn’t see any obvious signs of racism, and we didn’t ask the bartender so we still aren’t sure but I’m leaning towards it’s the normal kind of skinhead bar. After one drink, we decided to go home, go to bed early and have a big breakfast.

The next day we started off by going to the Reina Sofia contemporary art museum to see many masterpieces including Dali’s The Great Masturbator (a warm up to the Dali Museum) and Picasso’s Guernica. Guernica is far more impressive in person than it is in photos. It takes up most of a very large wall and there are many smaller details that are generally lost in the photocopies of photos of the painting that I’ve seen in class (for example there is rooster in it I never noticed before). But by far one of the most interesting parts of the exhibit was that there were a series of photos of the painting at various points in its creation. I’ve always been very interested in how someone starts a painting, especially one so powerful and large, and now I know! Outline the figures first, then you paint. But the thing is it seems like he changed his mind in the process as his earlier versions had some of the figures in different places and facing different directions. That’s inspiring, that even masterpieces and the “greats” make mistakes, change their minds and have problems in the creative process. After the Reina Sofia we went to the Prado with Melanie’s uncle/uncle twice removed or something like that. At first, I was confused and a little hurt when she said that we’ll be going to the museum with her tio since tio is literally uncle but is also used to mean man/dude/guy.

(he's the one on the right)

Her uncle is the man. He is a functionario of the state, which is sort of like a bureaucrat but with tenure and it covers a far wider range of positions (ticket takers on the trains are functionarios, so are university professors). He used to be a functionario in the Reina Sofia, in its financial sector (I think, the guy is a fast talker so I missed some of the finer point) and has some relation with the functionario who sells tickets to the Prado. The details don’t matter so much, what matters is we got to skip the MASSIVE line and I got in free, so I was a very happy camper. The Prado is a very, very large museum, gigantesca as the locals would say it (pronounced he-gan-tes-ka). It’s of Smithsonian (or dare I say larger?) proportions. They nearly ran through most of the museum to see the highlights. I actually ran at points since I would stop and look at the paintings for a little bit longer and so I had to run to catch up. There was an exhibit on Francis Bacon including several painting of a Pope screaming behind bars/brutish vertical lines. It was very intense. I also saw Velazquez’s Las Meninas which was something a long time coming. I have seen and studied that painting at least every other year in a Spanish class and now I can finally say I saw it. I am kind of ashamed to admit it but right now, I’m having trouble thinking of what else I saw. I know I saw many brilliant masterpieces that changed the art world forever, but for the life of me, I can’t name a single one. This is an issue I generally have with art museums, I see countless works, a very few stand out, I enjoy looking at most, others I walk by without a second thought and so while I’ve technically seen many classics and wonderful works in numerous museums, I don’t know how much has actually sunk in. Does that mean that fine art is lost on me? I hope not. Does it mean that the finer points of fine art are lost on me? Probably. But honestly, how many Jesuses (Jesi, Microsoft Word spell-check doesn’t recognize either) on a cross/paintings of the Stations of the Cross can a person see and still be awed by them. It’s like portraits and still-lifes (still lives?),* they are all pretty similar, the big difference is technique, and since I have no idea what is the difference between late French classical and early Italian baroque, I kind of have trouble appreciating it. I want to appreciate it more than I do, I like the idea of being cultured, but it’s hard. At least I’m exposing myself to art though…right?

The Familiar and the Unfamiliar

Hey everybody! I’m back home in Salamanca after a wild, weird, fun, and educational 10 day Semana Santa vacation. And yes, I’m home here. That’s not to say that the US is not my home as well, but I was thinking about this on the 10 hour bus ride from Barcelona (I had a lot of time on that ride, a whoooole lot of time), I feel at home in Salamanca and in Spain in general, especially when compared to France. My trip started with the familiar of Madrid and slowly I went beyond what was known to me, geographically, culturally and linguistically. I had visited Madrid before so I know the general layout of the city, where the main points are in relation to one another, how to use its transit and most importantly, I can speak Castellano. I was also with Melanie for the first few days of the trip which helped many things, first she is an excellent travel buddy and secondly (to speak in generalities I learned from “Problem of God” with Professor Ruf), it helped me bring a familiar to the unfamiliar.By the time she left to continue her journey in France and Czech Republic, I had explored so much of Madrid that I feel very comfortable in the city.

Two days after she left, I had another experience which helped deepen my comfort in Madrid and Spain as a whole. I went to Passover services and then to a Seder. It was a marvelous experience in many ways, which I’ll elaborate on later, but intrinsically that day made me realize that I can truly be me in Spain, and that Spain could be a home to me. I had known before that I can be a vegetarian, a liberal, an ecologist and practically any other label that I could be given in Spain, but I wasn’t sure if I could really be a Jew here. You can call a place home, you can make it familiar or conosido if it accepts and understands all of who you are, whether it is through the place excepting what you are when you get there or if it is you changing to be accepted. Until that day, that service, that Seder, until I heard Hebrew and was with people who shared that part of my identity and fully accepted it, intrinsically I knew Spain could not have been a home for me. I felt that I could not be fully understood here. Which isn’t to say I felt unwelcomed at any point (ok, when I saw an anti-Israel rally in January in Madrid where people we chanting “intifada” I felt a little unwelcomed), but there is a difference between being accepted and being understood. Before I was accepted, now I know that I can be understood in Spain*.

After the Seder I experienced another decent into the unfamiliar^ which started in exhaustion, confusion and a definite sense of arrival as all travels to the unfamiliar should start. The Seder ended around midnight and I had a bus to Barcelona to catch at 6am for an 8 hour bus ride. The thing is the bus station closes between 3am to 5am and it’s in a bad part of town so I couldn’t wait at the station. So I did what anyone would do, I decided I wouldn’t go to bed and sleep the entire time on the bus. I found a 24 hour café, chatted a little and read till 5am then, I went to the bus station absolutely exhausted, slept all except the last half hour of the ride and got into Barcelona at 2pm knowing nothing about the layout, where I would stay or what would I do. I had arrived in the unknown. To make matters better, some would say worse but I try to be an optimist, Catalan is common in Barcelona which is a different language (more on that latter) than Castellano. Most things were in both so I didn’t really have much of an issue, but it was a marked difference than life in Castilla y Leon.

After two days in Barcelona I further continued my travels into the unknown and especially the surreal. I went to the Salvador Dali museum in Figeras (more on that later too) which was a very fitting museum for the avant guard thinker. And then I went beyond the border of the known into the unknown, literally. I went to France.

I speak very very very little French. I can sort of say “I speak a little French” in French. I can conjugate the verbs to be, to have, to want, to go and to eat in the present tense. However my vocabulary is very limited so I can’t say what I am, what I have, what I want, and what I eat (I can say where I go since those are city names). I went to an organic food conference which was a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar since I environmental discussions are very familiar to me, however their being in French instantly made a familiar topic nearly completely unfamiliar°. I had an excellent time in France thanks to couch surfing, but after my 24 hour visit I was ready to go home to where I can understand and be understood by the people. 

So here I am, home. Relaxed, a little more traveled and little more informed than before.

^Or does one ascend to unfamiliar? I need to check google maps on that one to figure out the geographical relation between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

*Don’t worry; I’m still coming back in August. I still need to graduate and transferring colleges in my senior year would be a little tough.

° It was like they were speaking a different language or something!

Passover Hiatus

Hey all, just wanted to let you today I’m heading to Madrid till the 8^th and from the 9^th to the 13^th I’ll be based in Barcelona (but might cross the border into Southern France for the night) so I will not be updating in that time. It’s really nice that the school gave us over a week off for Passover, I’m sure the fact that Semana Santa is also this week is just a coincidence.

The trip to Barca from Madrid is about 8 hours and the trip from Barcelona to Salamanca is about 10. I will be on a bus for both of those legs…wooo. To pass the time, I am bringing (all in Spanish) a 40 page packet of reading for my Politics and Violence class, a packet from my Islam class, and the 2^nd and the 7^th Harry Potter (which is a very easy read in Spanish).

I was going to bring the book "Los Asesinos: Una secta islamica radical" by Bernard Lewis on the trip too, but the public library doesn't have it. My facultad's library has a copy but since it's already Semana Santa (even though some people had class today) I'm only allowed to enter the library, I can't take out any books, oy.

When I get back, I’m sure I’ll have a lot to write about, expected topics are:

Seder in Madrid, How I wanted to take a honest to goodness high speed train but couldn’t since it’s crazy expensive, keeping Passover in Spain, Barcelona vs. Madrid analysis, Beach Bumming it, The Dali Museum, A Night in France, Art in Madrid, lunch with the Hare Krishnas, Adventures on a 10 hour bus ride, and Harry Potter in Spanish.

Chag Sameach, Happy Holy Week, and hasta luego