New Ranchero in Nueva York

After letting the blog slip by the wayside in my transition between spain, san francisco and new york, i have decided to re-up it, as they say. I find living in new york as an outsider a vastly confusing experience. it's like a big country club to break into...figuring out the hip neighborhoods, what a certain street number signifies culturally, and don't even get me started on the surrounding burroughs. it's taken me two months to explore my own little niche in the west village, and still everyday i stumble upon a new wonder: adorable handcrafted jewelry store, all you can eat sushi, vegetarian bistro. there is something to be said for new york: it never ceases to amaze.
I'll admit the transition has been less than easy. displaced californians are more common than not, and there is a definitively shared nostalgia (fog, hills, mexican food). I won't even attempt to settle the eternal debate, which food city is best: ny or sf. obviously to each his own, there are inherent biases, but i will admit, the sheer volume of amazing food is astounding here, yet the produce leaves something to be desired.
I've been told that new york is the loneliest city in the world, especially in winter, and i don't doubt that it is true. I've taking it upon myself to use these lonely dark days to cook and buckle down on the studies. Studying food culture at nyu is incredible, i am meeting amazing people and have been opened up to an entire world that would otherwise be difficult to access. So for now, i will focus on my research. I am currently studying the lack of mexican food in new york, or more specifically, how the burrito is an iconic symbol of california and what it says about mexican/californian relations. My other area of research at the moment is the influence or effect of food on dreaming and other subconscious states.
Tonight i am cooking south african braii spiced chicken, roasted and then braised in a tomato curry sauce with red lentils. excited to bust open my smuggled spice packets from capetown...they have been sitting in my cabinet for the better part of the year, and actually survived the move from sf to nyc. Hopefully my survival through this journey will be equally successful, although i admit to a large amount of homesickness at the moment, and i could use some california sun. we shall see...

Back on the west side...

I think i went to Spain to figure something out about myself...it was never concrete but i'm sure it was there all along. Whether to assure myself that i could strike out on my own, or to learn a long-loved language, the most important thing i took away from my experiences in Granada was the ability to appreciate the moment.
I must finally be getting back into the swing of american life, because i now find myself trying to soak in every minute of the city--the bonfire smells at ocean beach, the damp salted fog...i find myself walking along looking intently at every person, storefront and detail of my daily passings.

I've been thinking a lot about moving to New York and it will definitely be a HUGE change. I try to take an urban hike every day, to soak up san francisco before i leave, and to make sure i spend at least five minutes every day at the sky (i've been told the buildings are so high in nyc that there aren't open spaces) and appreciating my space. I have decided this is a much more positive use of my energy than fretting about apartments, classes, and other matters of the east coast.

In related news, i will spending five days in nyc for general cultural touring, apartment overviews, advisor meetings, and gallivanting with my displaced west coast new yorker friends. this will be my first visit to new york since i was in 8th grade, so i like to think of it as my cherry popping voyage (cuz 8th grade doesn't count). Wish me luck!!

i made it...

I'm officially back in san francisco. despite my 3:30 am insomnia/jetlag combo, it
...SCRATCH THAT...
that was from a couple days ago when my sleep deprived brain couldn't fit together more than two sentences, let alone elaborate on my feelings in any detailed manner beyond "food" or "shower". or press save now instead of publish post, which apparently i did by accident.

it's true, i'm back and it feels great. although i very much miss my little pueblo of granada. in comparison, san francisco is loud, dirty and full of people (ironically a TON of europeans). made the mistake of trying to run an errand downtown (had john drop me at union square) and talk about your "welcome to america" clusterf**k. and yes, i totally forgot about the homeless problem (and here i was thinking that the shoeless hippies and street performers were an irritation). oh it was awful, and loud, and pushy. i ducked into my fav union square hangout, urban outfitters, for a brief moment of zen, only to find it equally as foreign, loud complete with headsplitting techno soundtrack. distraught, i hurriedly found my way to the muni (of course, my fav n line) and realized that compared to my lovely microbuses of the albaicin, the muni is slow, inefficient and downright gross (insert horrifying memories of being puked on two years ago, what was i thinking?).

suffice it to say, the transition is not going as smoothly as planned. although i can freely admit that i am eating EVERYTHING delicious under the sun. and yes, yes i did have my burrito. it was good, but in my granadinian naivete i thought to walk up twin peaks to john's house with my (super chicken with two types of salsa) burrito before enjoying it (and hills here have become mountains in my absence...of course in granada i lived on a mountain that they called a hill, so i'm thinking it's only a matter of perspective that will revert back to normal in a few days). upon my arrival it was no longer melty delicious, although who can really complain about a glorious mission burrito after weeks and weeks of mexicanless suffering? not i. am also steadfastly finishing off leftovers from the life-altering pork posole john whipped up upon my arrival. all that's missing is a round table pizza then i will be BACK (culinarily speaking, of not wholly otherwise).

my only other complaint is that my beautifully fluid spanish sounds like gibberish to everyone here. john continually asks me to repeat what i'm saying because the spanish words don't translate (granted he speaks country bumpkin mexican so he shouldn't throw stones), but still, i find it immensely frustrating. alas, who am i to complain, as i have spent the last few days wandering around this strange city, eating, and soaking up that good old fashioned american television. three more days of adjustment before i am thrown back into the real world of job searches, interviews, doctor's appointments, haircuts, nyu advisor appointments, class registration, and general responsibilities. until then i am on vacation and i feel no shame sitting in my fuzzy robe until the late afternoon. it's the only way i can figure out how to let go of my spanish zen (which took me months to get really practiced) and revert back to my busy, need-to-have-something-to-do self. although i did take an old balsamic vinegar bottle i found in the apartment and use some of my spanish olive oil to make spicy pepper olive oil (for my round table, obvs). that's a project right?...let's just leave it at, i'm coming back, slowly but surely...

Domingo de Ramos

sad to say goodbye to granada and my little piso but not nearly as sad as i thought. and of course had a great last day of school...jamie and i made surprise guacamole from our class, then we had our culture class at my fav, horno de paquito, so not only did i get a last go at my papas bravas but i also got to say goodbye to the silverfox of a waiter, alfredo.

first step to home: sevilla. more beautiful than i would've expected, and remember how i keep saying i haven't found the spanish men to my liking? well, that's because i hadn't been to sevilla. wow, they are tan, they are manly and beautiful, they make eye contact. it's working for me. am having so much fun eating my way through sevilla: of course fried gambas etc in paper cones, espinacas garbanzo, boquerones en vinaigre, tortillitas de camarones, rabo de toro...you name it i've eaten it.

so today is domingo de ramos (our palm sunday but hear they use olive branches instead of palm fronds), the first official day of semana santa. you know what that means: processionals in the streets, day and night, incense, huge gold floats of the resurrection of christ, etc etc. not to mention the hooded kkk figures. i have yet to verify this fact but i cannot believe that they kkk and the nazarenos of semana santa just happen to have the same pointy hoods and robes without having some sort of connection. my theory is that the kkk used this idea (which represents penitence in semana santa) because it is a religious symbol, to exemplify their religious purity (whilst practicing racist atrocities--ah, the things that are done in the name of god)...but that's just what i think. so yes, the hood thing is creepy. and honestly the whole procession thing is a little dull. its very slow, there's usually a band (the music i'll admit is awesome and religious and intense) and then a bunch of hooded figures (black, white, green, blue, purple), some with shoes some without. they walk this huge parade route and each church brotherhood has two or three floats and they carry on this walk. the procession for each church takes about 4-5 hours and you can imagine the logistical mess this is for anybody wanting to explore the city on foot....half the streets are blockaded...and the entire world is out spectating.
but the best part, at least so far, is that EVERYBODY is done up in their sunday "go-to-meeting" clothes. it's so fabulous. men in suits and ties, women in dresses and heels...even the little kids: little boys in knee socks, shorts with suspenders over collared shirts, and little girls with dresses and baby baleros with bows in their hair. adorable. cant get enough.
and although i'm exhausted from walking all over today, lucky for me there is live coverage of the procession from key points...on five tv channels so it's pretty hard to miss...even while i'm taking my siesta.

interesting cultural moment to be sure, but this is supposed to be the slowest day of the week...glad we are headed to madrid tomorrow, not sure i could handle a whole week of this type of catholic intensity...wednesday the processions go all night. luckily by wednesday i will be eating burritos and enjoying the sf skyline from the couch....

culture shock ahead....

starting to get a little worried about the homecoming (obviously not about my living situation, the burritos, mis amigos, or seeing beautiful sf again, more like the change of pace). the arrival of jeanne and larry was stupendous. we experienced a rare night out in granada to one of the poshest restaurants in this little hippie hamlet, and what, you may ask, did we eat? well, fondue of course. because only the coolest of cool and the fanciest of fancy can afford to sit beneath the shadow of the alhambra munching on iberian ham (purebred and fed only chestnuts, of course), various pates, and champinone y trufa fondue. compared to sf standards, well it was laughable lets be honest, but for granada it was some good, down-to-earth-made-fancy food. this should've been my first hint that the transition back to the glorious west coast would not be as easy peasy as i would've hoped.
spent the last two days wowing the 'rents with my fabulous spanish (since they last saw me when all i could manage were a few useful, albeit grotesquely vulgar mexican spanish phrases, my newly learned grammar and vocabulary are quite impressive), touring around granada, and generally enjoying the (craptastic) weather. yes it is raining otra vez, cold and awful. apparently there is (yet another) freak stormfront moving over southern europe...lucky for the fam they get to experience granada as i first did: cold, dark and wet.
of course the family arrival also brought tidings from new york (and my new favorite nyu sweatshirt) and have sparked multiple discussions on what a change nyc will be from sf....let alone small town spain. so i have four months to unlearn all of my newfound spanish zen-ness and go-with-the-flow attitude (i think even j&l would prefer me to be a little more planned and productive here, but when in rome....cant say that enough). such a shame as i worked on that for weeks and weeks before i really got it right, and in such a short time i will likely become a pushy, rushy new yorker (eek) alas....
these next few days will be full of great granada fun: after school tapas and of course a mexican meal at my apartment (i mean if you truly want to experience my life here you have to eat some of my perfected recipes...i may be in spain but my mexican is "off the chain") tomorrow; visit to the alhambra (finally) and flamenco show tuesday; packing day wednesday and of course my final visit to shar (oh how i will miss him, am hoping he will endow me with his curry vinadloo recipe as a going away gift); thursday i plan to tapear and enjoy everything that granada has to offer (free food or otherwise) as friday after school we are out of here and off to sevilla.
i'm hoping that our gradual transition from small-town granada to hipster andalucian town sevilla to the happening-madrid will prepare me mentally for my return. of course we do have a layover in atlanta during which time i can soak up some good ole southerm culture (god grant me fried chicken...). although i doubt anything can undo three months of spain in such a short time.
what can i say? i'm stoked, i want sushi, i want thai food, i want the biggest mission burrito my money can buy...i want to use dollars and speak spanglish (cuz that's how we do it on the west side), and to be able to cook with fresh ginger. (good thing i'm planning a career in food culture as all my deepest wishes and desires revolve around satisfying my culinary needs). i want to see my friends, my family (although j&l being here is one of the best gifts ever, its so fun to show them what i have been donig on my own for three months), my pillows....the list goes on.
no doubt i will follow this up with many-a-blogpost from the hills of sf describing my longing for flamenco music, papas bravas, claras, and Spanish spanish (although i can never deny my love of mexico, mexicans, and anything generally related with our brothers to the south). for now i will content myself with enjoying my last four days of granada and worry about the rest as it comes (see, i am so spanish, three months ago this would've wigged me out....live and learn, my friends, live and learn...)

churros & chocolate

after all my complaints and questions (its been almost three months now) they finally decided that there was a need to fix the internet (that only worked intermittently to start off with). thus, in doing so, they turned it off for like a week. although now all is functioning as it should be, much better than before and just in time for my last week in granada. i can't believe i will be home so soon, with so much to do, planning for new york, picking classes, finding an apartment, it all makes my head hurt so i'm not going to think about it until i step foot on u.s. soil.
in other news, i find myself rushing around to do all the things i have yet to do in spain. the most important being churros and chocolate and the alhambra. jeanne and larry and i have tickets to visit the alhambra on tuesday afternoon, and luckily for me jesus planned a churro chocolate day for our class last week. there is a great churreria right next to the residences owned by the school so a couple of girls from our class picked up churros and jesus brought coffee and it was a great day. the experience was by no means life-altering however...perhaps it's because i lack an overly sweet tooth but they really didn't do that much for me....greasy, phallic shaped, and the chocolate was sweet but nothing to write home about. not sure what all the buzz is about, i much prefer my carnival churros (you know, caked in cinnamon sugar), but when in rome....
jeanne and larry arrive this afternoon so there will be much to do in the coming week: playing tour guide, eating tapas, shopping, seeing the sights, and (ugh) packing. luckily we will be in sevilla for palm sunday--not the biggest day of semana santa by any means but definitely the first day of a whole week of religious processions. then its off to madrid for a day and a half, then business class all the way home (thank you, N.M.L.C. policy). should be an interesting week followed by some serious culture shock, adjustment, real life dealings, and a bountiful array of mexican food (oh god mission burrito...i'm coming for you). so sad that spain is coming to an end, although it will be nice to feel like a productive, active person again....

las fallas y san jose...

we had father's day in spain. dia de padres, el 19 de marzo. porque, you may ask? after all, our american version is in june, and is a hallmark holiday, so you would think what with being an international corporation they would want some consistency. well, it turns out that the 19th of march is fathers day because it is the day of San Jose. i, in my american religious naivete, asked the (clearly stupid) question, "who is san jose? what did he do?" the response i was met with was a mixture of horror, condescension, and general "you know, maria, jose and baby jesus. he fathered jesus christ isn't that enough?"
well excuse me, how am i supposed to know that joseph and jose are one and the same, or that he gets his own holiday just for fathering jesus?
this day is especially cool, not at all because it's fathers day (a day that the corte ingles takes advantage of by requiring their consumers to buy ties for their fathers), but because it is Las Fallas de Valencia.

apparently, they spend the WHOLE year building floats and facades (like wash u's thurtene times 75). i mean, HUGE beautiful lifesize buildings, statues, all sorts of crazy stuff. there is a parade, a competition, all sorts of fabulous costumes, but the best part is when it turns into SPANISH BURNING MAN. there is a museum in valencia and the winning facade from each year is saved, whilst all the rest are burnt to the ground. starting at 1 in the morning, they literally light the world's largest bonfire. I happened to be coming home from celebrating jamie's 30th and arrived just as the clock struck 1. of course, this celebration is televised, and they literally showed the burning facades for an hour....this is on par with the burning of atlanta in "gone with the wind"...i mean, some serious fuego. the best part is they also set off fireworks and rockets so its NOISY and crazy and the tv keeps panning to these adorable spanish girls all decked out in gold costumes sobbing and crying while everything is burning. apparently this is supposed to be jesus' dad's day, but i'm pretty sure the catholic church just took a pagan spring festivus (burning of the old to ring in the new) and pretended it was a religious day.

actually, it turns out that some of the most celebrated festivals in spain were around long before isabella and frederico came and kicked out all the jews, muslims, minorities and forced their religion on those poor spaniards and gitanos. carnival, for example, definitely has bacchanalian roots (i mean, celebrating the pleasures of life is not really following in the catholic tradition). and the burning of an entire facade city seems much more fitting with the spring equinox than anything joseph did (i mean, it was a virgin birth, so what did he really contribute?). not to mention the running of the bulls and the plethora of animal festivals that generally take place in the north of spain during the winter months...all sorts of sacrificing and/or blessing of animals. although infused with religious symbolism the roots of such ceremonies seem to predate the arrival of the catholic kings.

which brings me to my favorite spanish paradox. in a country that is dominated by one religion--a religion that in general is pretty strict and regulated--there still exist a vast array of very old traditions and ceremonies that are more closely related to the celebrating of the seasons, harvest, sun, and general pleasures of life. it's quite a duality to live everyday, but it's a comfort to know that when catholicism arrived in spain it didn't completely take over the thousands of years of history predating it....oh spain, you are so simple and yet so deeply complex....i will miss you (only two more weeks, eek!)

i'm losing my e's...

when i first got here, those ten long years of studying french came flying back to bite me in the ass...whenever a verb is the same in spanish and french (to have: tener, tenir) the french version generally ends with -ir and the spanish with -er. my most common homework errors are spelling everything the french way: augmentir, imaginir, perdir...at first it was funny but then it got to the point of ridiculousness so whenever i didn't know how to spell a verb i just threw in an e. same with pronunciation, my naturally tendency is to use the french pronunciation out of habit, so i have to think really hard to make the "e" sound come out instead. unfortunately this has had dire consequences for my english...i now find myself, amidst writing an email, reciting grammatical rules like "i before e except after c" before i commit to the spelling of a word (belIEve me, i've been catching myself doing this a lot)....or writing a word out three different ways before committing...and may i remind you i used to be a champion speller--i won second place in the fifth grade spelling bee (matt rubenstein beat me).

it seems that i have taken all the e's out of my written english and tossed them out into my spanish prose. just in time for grad school, as i received my acceptance letter from NYU (yay!) and will return to academic writing this fall. at least i have the summer to transition back to english....hopefully i can find my e's somewhere before i attempt the cross country move. although, this news has left me quite the smitten kitten so what am i complaining about? i may not be able to spell anymore, but i sure as heck am enjoying my last three weeks in GORGEOUS sunny granada. especially my patio, my newfound favorite drink, the clara, and the 4 euro deck of cards we bought in barcelona. i've got big plans to make, lots of changes coming up, but for now, i'm content to sit back, struggle along in spanish, and live it up the way the spaniards do (by taking advantage of the doing of nothing...it's really a complicated process you'd be surprised). happy weekend!

a little bit of follow up...

to follow up on my fascinating study of sexual attitudes i have an anecdote to demonstrate the openness of spanish men: today, whilst sitting in the plaza, soaking up the spanish sun and generally enjoying my afternoon, i saw a man waving for my attention from a table across the way. three men were seated, men who i actually "know" (recognize) from around the albaicin mainly because they are a trio of musicians who play everywhere, but more importantly because the singer looks like anthony kiedis and the guitarist closely resembles a combination of brian austin green and kevin federline. this is neither here nor there, and furthermore, the third is not at all attractive in any way and looks most like an ogre or a big buffoon with long curly hair. well, this fellow chose this moment to attract my attention by grabbing hold of one of his man boobs and jiggling it, then giving me the thumbs up sign--now this is something that i'm pretty sure is offensive in any culture...but what's worse, is that when i failed to react (i mean, it's not really appropriate to yell expletives across the plaza) is that he grabbed BOTH of his man boobs and repeated said cupping action with a double thumbs up sign....over and over and over again. finally, i nodded (as gracefully as possible) just so he would stop at which point he invited me to his table and to listen to him play flamenco. because they are a neighborhood group, i've heard them play, was not at all interested, and furthermore was grossly offended (although i will admit my chest does look rather nice in this wife-beater today). despite the fact that i'm pretty sure this is inappropriate here as well as at home (where somebody would likely get slapped--literaly and figuratively with a lawsuit for sexual harassment), none of the other fifteen or so groups of people in the plaza took notice or seemed remotely bothered by it. so, with my new spanish outlook on life--going with the flow, that is--i will take this in stride and accept the compliment (although please note that i did not follow him and his friends to the mirador to watch them play, what a creep!) i have to admit, there's nothing like people watching in my favorite albaicin plaza, where everyone from locals to tourists pops by for a drink, where the sun shines brilliantly and where the patatas bravas are excellently picante. when the weather is this beautiful there is nothing like passing an afternoon (or three in a row) people watching and drinking claras. jesus showed up and i seized the opportunity to yell "hola guapo" across the plaza, which for whatever reason has made me a peep...of the server (who sees me and jamie everyday), of jesus' friends (because he was forced to explain why a random lady is catcalling him) and the general plaza aliatar regulars--it was a very spanish thing to do. pretty funny, although i'm close to positive he spent the following 20 minutes explaining to his friends that those crazy white girls at that table over there are students of his, recounting our most infamous shenanigans etc. oh espana.....

microwaves & immersion blenders...

We had a fabulous time in barcelona. i had a great time being out of small town granada and out in a metropolitan city (but i'm not gonna lie, i did miss the simplicty of granadinian life). When not traipsing all over the city, i spent my time observing those crazy catalunians (only moderately closely related to there andalucian counterparts)
i'd like to start with the fact the spanish cannot get enough of the immersion blender--so much so that it is found in every kitchen (i mean EVERY kitchen...even my littler apartmento for foreing students has one). at home i have only seen the industrial kind, the kind we use to puree gallons of soup or pasta sauce. i admit that i have been leaning towards purchasing one for my personal kitchen (always handy to blend without having to dirty the cuisinart) but have yet to justify such a superfluous appliance. but here in spain, well, they use the damn thing for any kitchen function which might require any sort of find dice or puree--soup, salsas, beans or lentils, any sauce imaginable, vegetables, meats, fruit smoothies etc etc. and not only do they puree said culinary delicacies, they PUREE them to a fine cream...they let that baby whiz away until there are no chunks or textures left. personally i prefer a lesser degree of smoothness in these sorts of dishes but, like i've said before, they do things differently here.

speaking of which, what's even stranger is there unecessary and excessive use of the microwave (something which my apartment lacks, thank god). in barcelona, the majority of small restaurants or cafes had some sort of microwave set-up for reheating the food that had already been prepared that morning, something which i believe is tied to the incredible cunundrum that is spanish employment...

let me digress for a moment. apparently the unemployment rate in spain is up around 21%, which is pretty high (but they say it always is high in spain). thus the government creates meaningless jobs where you get paid for doing virtually nothing--they are a lot of people paid to sweep...anything you can sweep they have made a job for someone. in my tiny "street" (which is more closely related to a village alley without pavement and some scattered rocks) there is a fellow who comes around every morning to pick up odd ends of trash and to sweep. i cannot tell what he sweeps because as is it a street there is the usual natural debris (leaves, petals fallen from the almond tree, grass etc) but nothing that necessarily needs removing....and yet, every restaurant i have seen has been understaffed. I mean, a singular server fulfills the role of waiter, busser, and sometimes even dishwasher. thus the lack of service and the loong waiting periods. but wouldn't you think, that with all this unemployment they could create jobs (requiring minimum education or technical skills) as bussers and dishwashers to help out? theoretically the business would run more smoothly, the service would be faster thus making more money for the owners. when presented with this question, both my professors (jesus and rosa) could not come up with an answer. yet another mystery in the spanish way of life...

which leads me back to the microwave situation. perhaps it is out of necessity that the restaurant staff often-times uses a microwave to quickly heat a customer's meal in order to expedite service. this is something which i believe, in San Francisco, would be met with horror and defiance, yet the Spanish do not take notice. Furthermore, it doesnt seem to depend on the quality of food as i have even seen a 12-15 euro plate be microwaved (Jamie and i have started poking our heads into bars and restaurants listening for the tell tale "ding" before committing). Clearly we have different cultural beliefs about the value of food (or lack thereof) in relation to the microwave. This is most brilliantly exemplified by Jamie's roommate, Maurizio and italian ex-pat living in granada for the last ten years. This man microwaves EVERYTHING you could posssibly put in there without causing an explosion. Finally, when curiosity got the better of us, Jamie pointed out that the radiation in microwaves is harmful to the body and probably not helping the quality of the food either. We attempted to explain that eating every meal from the microwave probably sapped your plates of any sort of nutritional value and were met with the classic "Oh-you-americans-and-your-crazy-ideas" face plus being told that we were completely wrong. I mean, i'm all for the quick reheat when it's needed, but i refuse to believe that microwaving ALL of your food is not damaging to your health in some way (if not only because it alters the composition of the food itself). Perhaps this is why spanish people do not mind paying 12 euro for a microwaved plate of albondigas, but I on the other hand, prefer my food cooked to order. Call me persnickety if you want, but i will take my meals without gamma rays thank you very much...

i know you were dying to find out...

...what this weeks mcdonald hamburguesa de semana is: australian bacon.
apparently through these internationally themed burgers the marketing directors of mcdonald's are hoping to take their customers on a world tour....i know for me, nothing says australia like bacon on my hamburger

sex in spain...

had a great culture class yesterday, the other girl was sick and i chose this as my opportunity to ask jesus questions of serious import...like, do you think spanish women are more promiscuous than american women? and are spaniards more likely to cheat on their significant others than americans? sounds silly now, but these questions have a wide variety of answers and i think speak to deep seated cultural truths.

for example, when the whole monica lewinsky scandal came out, nobody in spain understood why we cared. as jesus says, "every politico has his amante, and his vida privada is hi vida privada, why do i care if there was semen or no?" it's not so much that one is able to make generalizations about spanish women or men,n because every person has his/her standards, it's more that the cultural attitude towards sexual relations is more open and relaxed, and thus the need for games and manipulation is much less.

this lead into a very interesting comparative discussions of our respective close personal friends and their relationships and how these things work differently here and there. for example, it is strange for a spanish man/woman to try to set his/her friend up with someone. The thought of bringing my friend on a date to meet my boyfriend's friend is so ludicrous to them that they actually find it laugh-out-loud funny. Spanish people would never put that sort of effort into organizing a situation, they are so relaxed (as previously evidenced by their utter lack of productivity, which, having embraced, i am enjoying immensely)that it would never occur to them to do anything more than let the chips fall where they may.

oh, and it's totally ok to sleep with people the first night you know them. in fact, un rollo por una noche is quite common. To explain this, jesus recounted me the story of his first date with an american girl. They went to a movie (to him they just went to see a film but for her they "went out to the movies," something which he emphasized was very different) during which she reached for his hand, there was some footsie. long story short, at the end of the night when she leaned in for her first-date kiss, he straight up asked her if she was going to sleep with him or not. (i'm assuming at this point this very polite american girl was grossly offended). to him this is normal, there are no formalities, no games, no need to dance around the subject, let's do it or let's not. if not i wont waste my time.
Ah, if only we could all be so liberated with our sexuality...

Today, as shira was still sick, we had the opportunity to continue our private discussion, although this time we stuck mainly to school-related topics. (as much as i love our moderately inappropriate cultural discussions, i can only talk about sexuality so much with attractive spanish men before i need to change the subject...quickly). although we did get into a great discussion about everyone in my class and how we feel about them. at the end i thanked him for our chats because i enjoy them so much, and he said yes well he doesnt really talk like this with his students and i probably shouldnt tell everybody else we were gossiping about them.

To put the cherry on top, he spoke english to jamie and i (briefly, but the most english we've heard him speak since we've been here) and it was adorable. Me being jeanne's daughter, i felt the need to tell him how great his english is (that and since he told me yesterday i was one of the most gifted students he'd had in 12 years, i felt it apropos to repay the compliment). typical spanish, he denied denied denied--if you accept a compliment in spain everybody thinks you're being snotty...you're supposed to say, no no no really no...and then say thank you. during which time the other person must insist on the compliment (i forget about this ALL the time and find myself saying, politely, thank you, which to them is horribly rude...ah, one can only do so much). anyway after 4 or 5 "no my english sucks" i told him that jamie and i thought it was foreign and hot and he should use it more often...that was my american way of convincing him of the compliment when in reality is should've just said the same thing over and over. he turned bright red, said thank you in english and ran away. TOO funny but a great end to a series of discussions of cultural differences. you can take the girl out of california, but you cant take the california out of the girl, no matter where she goes...alas...

oh, going to barcelona tomorrow for the fin de semana...woohoo, will report back.

something icky that i have to get off my chest...

...is Mcdonalds. their commercials here are all about natural beef, fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, etc etc. which is weird enough in and of itself, and honestly the two just don't go together in my head (natural, mcdonald's, wait what?). but that's not even the strange part! they appear to have a burger of the week. last week was the canadian burger--bacon, cheese, mayo, some sort of potato salad looking type thing, i don't know, the commericals scare me (and yes, there is most definitely a mounty). this was bad, but today, i realized that it's a weekly special...why? you may ask? because this week's special is the MEXICAN burger...oh yah, fresh guacamole, hot sauce, grilled onions, the works on a Mcdonalds burger...pretty sure the one thing that could make me never eat mexican food again (not that i would step within 500 meters of the damn thing, but still....eesh)

best public transportation moment (corny but better than being puked on by a homeless man)...

so, jamie and i decided it was time to visit shar...after a second (less disastrous) attempt at curry (not gonna lie it was AWESOME...went to the spice market for garam masala, coriander, etc...unfortunately couldn't find fresh ginger--only available in the morning--but other than that excellent effort) we decided that we should check in with shar...especially since last time, jamie (after a few glasses of wine) decided to ask him all about being punjab, literally. which he gracefully took as a compliment and spent about half an hour telling us about pakistani's in spain (he speaks english as a second language...nice to finally know why his spanish is so awkward and shy). although he did refuse to share the secrets of curry vindaloo with us, claiming we would never return if we knew how to make it ourselves (clever). so we returned, triumphantly i might add as he hooked us up with appetizers and after dinner tea and anise liqueur, so cute. although this is not my main purpose here, merely a background story to the evening...

after stuffing myself with DELICIOUS curry vindaloo, raita and vegetable curry, i opted to the take the bus up the mountain. i have been really good about walking everywhere but tonight it just seemed like a bus kinda night. in the city center they have life-sized buses that run to the outskirts of town, but to go to the albaicin, sacramonte or the alhambra there exist only minibuses. and for whatever reason, these mini buses stop in plaza nueva and wait....until they are full (sometimes 2 minutes sometimes 20, i'm unclear but have decided it is at the driver's discretion)--full being anywhere between 10-25 people...you wouldn't think 25 people would fit on a minibus but i have seen it done and it is not pretty.

whilst I am waiting, the usual motley crew of tourists, gypsies, old people, and just-off-work folk pile onboard. for whatever reason, the chatter on this particular bus #31 was quite lively this evening, with the usual spanish small talk.
**i've come to find the spanish to be a very stoic group of people--i guess after 40 years of economic insecurity and Franco they kind of have to be. they won't reassure you in any way, but are quick to tell you exactly what you are doing wrong. at first this comes off as very offensive but i've realized that this "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attidude is actually incredibly practical. suffice it to say, the economic crisis came up and the usual complaints were mounted. this in and of itself is fascinating because in the states we complain constantly about the crisis (always with the underlying fear that we actually might be totally screwed) but here they adopt a rye sense of humor and biting sarcasm that totally deflects any serious sentiments...i mean, they endured 40 odd years of a fascist dictator, pretty sure they will survive a dip in the market...

this itself was incredibly amusing, especially when followed by a complaint from a middle aged passenger: "are we sitting here to save energy because of the crisis or are you just lazy?" directed at the bus driver. at this point the bus was full and ready to go, and i'm pretty sure he was just being lazy and enjoying his cigarette break. but i mean, if i were to make such a comment to a muni driver in sf i would most likely get kicked off the bus if not ticketed and reprimanded by the muni police. and what, you may ask, happened to this poor misguided woman? well she was the hero of the busride, and sparked an entirely new critical discussion of energy waste in spain...after the entire bus laughed, including the bus driver (who promptly finished his cig and started driving)...

but the cherry on top of this experience was when a teenaged boy's cell phone rang with amy winehouse's "rehab" and before he could answer it, a construction worker (in full blue jumpsuit and dusty boots), a business man (in a suit), myself, and a late 30ish gypsy woman all bust out, "i won't gooo goo goo" in unison...then of course burst out laughing because really, does that ever actually happen on public transportation? aaaah, espana, you mad country....i don't understand you and yet i still love you in your own special way...

oh those spanish...

allegedly they are the hardest working european country (this statistic is purely in terms of hours per day worked, not actual productivity...a qualification which i find ridiculous but absolutely essential to understanding the spanish people). find that hard to believe? me too, and i've been wondering why i've been feeling so lackadaisical and lazy. not that i'm complaining about my jobless liberty abroad, it's just that i am starting to feel a little useless. and i've realized why...as americans it is ingrained into our way of being that we have to GO GO GO in order to reward ourselves with any sort of down time. the spanish way of life is the complete opposite...they dont GO GO GO anywhere, in fact the key to the spaniards i think is that they "savor" every minute. they say they'll meet you in a half an hour and you're lucky if they show up at all. they take their sweet time doing everything, from eating and drinking, to sleeping and partying (you can't even go out to a decent club until 2:30am and that's early by granadinian standards). as glorious a way of living as this sounds, it's actually incredibly irritating to be a productive person in an unproductive society, as i am constantly finding myself with big chunks of downtime.

for example, i want to get all of my errands done for the day as soon as i finish school so i can reward myself with a relaxing evening. once again the spaniards thwart me, as they close everything until five, so i literally HAVE to take two hours to myself to relax and do nothing (what's there to do? nothing is open and this is "family time"). let's say at five, i am now hungry, well all restaurants close after lunch (around 5) and do not reopen until 8 or nine. bars too. because they assume that instead of madly studying away i have been having a luxurious luncheon savoring all sorts of delicious cuisine and do not need nutrition any time between 4 and 9 (because, who eats then?)

or let's say it's friday afternoon (afternoon here is from 3-8 by the way). after a brief siesta we go out for some tapas, and if we are out long enough, maybe grab a meal. then there are four hours (more or less) of time between dinner and going out. it's too long a quantity of time to stay out, especially because those spanish dont emerge from their homes until 11 at the earliest, so it's either hanging out with drunk american students in tourist bars or heading home for a nap...we usually go for option two. have you any idea how difficult it is to motivate yourself to get back out there after a few tapas, a few vinos, a glorious 2 hour movie and a nice snooze?

i use these examples merely to demonstrate my americanness clashing with the spanish culture. they feel productive when they work for four, five hours (with a three hour break in the middle) but i feel like a total slacker after 5 hours of school and only an hour of studying. for a spaniard, this is above and beyond what is necessary to be productive and thus were i spanish i would probably spend the rest of the evening sitting in a cafe, bar, or various restaurants passing the time watching the leaves change colors and the beer warm on my table. they only have so many hours of productivity per day, and i'm just used to a lot more.

it's been really hard to slow myself down, and to teach myself that it's ok to do nothing and enjoy it sometimes. especially after 24 years of having to GO GO GO, i'm really trying to savor the flavors of life. i like to think of myself as a relatively relaxed person (i say RELATIVELY) but here i'm like a total neurotic freak that has to do stuff all the time. oh well, i'm finding myself, slowly but surley...because apparently spending a whole week working on your tan is a commendable passing of the time...go me.

(karin i await your "at least you dont have to work" email, i know i know i sound like a whiny vacationer, but like the blog description says, this is about cultural learning and they just do things different from me. any complaints in this blogpost are merely for the purpose of demonstrating cultural differences and are in no way meant to imply that i am not taking full advantage of my unemployed status in a foreign country.)

my italian momma...

cooks for my friends while they sit around and smoke hash and drink wine....wait what?
yes it's true. yesterday went to jamie's apartment and met eddie, the mother of her italian rasta roommate (mau), a real live mama di firenze. as we were heading to the mercadona to do some shopping, eddie came with us to get some necessities for dinner. as she does not speak a word of english, and only understands fundamental spanish, there was a lot of hand gestering, repeating of words in loud voices (which helps in the translation, you know). finally we all figured out how to get what we want. on our way home she kept trying to take my bags, even though each of us had two. imagine this tiny, 5 foot italian mama grabbing my grocery bags and insisting that she is a strong dona! and by insisting i mean attacking me and pulling the bags out of my hands while speaking forcefully in italian. all the while jamie is up ahead singing britney's "womanizer" with no idea that i'm being accosted by a tiny but surprisingly strong italiana. it was quite the struggle, but she finally caved and let me keep the two i was holding (even though she seemed pretty weighed down with her two bags), and then she invited us to stay for dinner as she was making mau's fav: pasta e fagioli! yum. (also my fav italian food: although her version was incredibly simple and vegetarian-->jeanne i still like yours best!)
somehow it got across that i liked to cook and was a pastry chef, so eddie took it upon herself to teach me, step by step, her culinary mastery. of course then mau's friends from firenze came over and it was a big italian festivus, with jamie and i (the white girls) in the middle. apparently they have italian satellite tv, and let me tell you, italian is impossible to understand, even with 6 weeks of living in spain under my belt. there was even a spontaneous haircut (the outcome of which was not overly impressive, although jamie found the fellow much more attractive after the incident--mullet-euro-mohawks don't really do it for me, thanks). and all the while everybody is drinking wine and the rastas are smoking their hash, mama mau is chainsmoking away in the kitchen, ash tumbling from her cigs onto every surface and into every receptacle except the ashtray. it was surreal...i cannot imagine a situation where i would invite five of my friends over for dinner and proceed to smoke myself silly and imbibe large quantities of alcohol whilst my mother slaves away in the kitchen. i must say though, she makes a mean pot of pasta e fagioli. and for dessert, fraises y nata (Strawberries and whipped cream)....mmm. unfortunately mau doesn't like rosemary in his pasta, so, since i was so inspired by my spontaneous cooking lesson, i went to school today (school?! on a saturday?! and picked some fresh rosemary so tonight i am going to make my own spicy marinara a la italiana...minus the cigarette ash, of course.

gracias a jesus...

i had a bad day today. for no real reason--sun is shining, birds are chirping--i don't know what it was, maybe hormones or something, but today i just wasn't feeling it.
one of my professors, jesus, a suprprisingly attractive spanish fellow (although between the natural scent of the man and the overwhelming odor of cigarette smoke any attraction i had to him was completely asphyxiated weeks ago...hah, get it), asked me what was wrong today and i almost burst into tears. he came up after class and was like, are you sure you're ok, you don't seem like yourself today. not sure if it's because i've been on my own in spain for 6 weeks, or i'm homesick (it could also be the incessant craving for burritos and/or round table pizza) but it just felt like such a relief to have somebody ask about how i was feeling and care about my response (alright i just reread that and it must be hormones, because i sound like such a girl). he also has three girl roommates which may explain his sensitivity to issues of the feminine persuasion.
luckily for me the dutch girl in my culture class (that jesus also teaches) ditched class today so i had a whole hour of jesus to myself. obviously we discussed interesting cultural phenomenons (spanish imperialism in the new world vs. anglosaxon colonialism, etc) but generally spent some time just chatting and talking about our lives. it sounds stupid now, but that the time it really made my day. he mixes music in his spare time and played me a bunch of hispanic american music, among other things. nice to know somebody (even if he is a spoken-for, chainsmoking spaniard) is lookin out for me....

spanish flakes...

our friend chandra that lives in the cave was supposed to meet us on saturday for our mexican valentines day dinner (which, by the way, was disappointing, but what did we really expect being from texas and california and eating mexican food in spain?...the margheritas, however, were glorious). we waited for her in plaza nueva for 20 minutes before deciding that we were freezing our bums off and to just go ahead with our evening. well, jamie texted her and an hour later she wrote back, "i'm not coming," which lead to the great debate of how to say flaky in spanish. jamie's italian roommate who has lived in spain for ten years said the word doesnt exist. so did our teacher jesus. and why does said word not exist?, you might ask...because that's the spanish way. actually it reminds me a lot of south africa, when they say they're gonna do something in a minute and it could be like five hours. those crazy spaniards say they are going to do stuff all the time and don't do it. they have a word, "informal" which means informal (obviously) and also unreliable, but not specifically flaky. literally, the word does not exist in this language because it's how the people are. i know it sounds kind of stupid, but i cant get over it. if someone made me wait 20 minutes in union square and didn't show i'd be pissed. but here it's just how they do...

un pequeno disastre..

so jamie and i have our favorite indian restaurant. one of two in granada (and the two that exist here are owned by the same person--muglia I y muglia II--a rather hunky half indian half spanish looking fellow...slightly short for my taste but last time we saw him he was wearing a very attractive purple sweater). we have our usual--curry windaloo (not sure why they spell it with a w here but whatever), la mezcla verduras con curry and of course, garlic naan and dos copas de vino tinto. and we have our usual waiter, shar, who we have become very close friends with (seriously we have gone like twice a week for at least three weeks).
unfortunately, like at home, indian food is un poco carro so we decided to have a go at making our own curry complete with garlic naan. (we have had to limit ourselves to seeing shar once every two weeks or on special occasions) we met at the mercadona near jamie's house to do our shopping and bought all the necessities--flour, yeast, etc. so after finding the perfect recipe for naan we began to prepare our bread. oddly enough, when we poured the yeast in the warm water to bloom, it was white and it began to fizz. both of us were slightly confused and decided that it must be weird spanish yeast. Well, the word for yeast is levadura. PERO, the word for baking powder is levadura en polvo. turns out, we had bought baking powder. scratch that idea. we then walked twenty minutes back into town (down the 67 steps from my apartment) to the coviran in the albaicin...no yeast. they told us to check the panderia across the street. no yeast. luckily i have some professional training in bread baking (ah that culinary school certificate coming in handy, once again) so we decided to make unleavened naan...not good, but at least we had the curry and some rice.
because we are such indian food freaks we thought, hey, lets make some raita too...unfortunately neither of us thought to look at the yogur natural (because obviously its plain yogurt right?) which turned out to be sugared natural yogurt. suffice it so say it was a bit of a disaster, but we ate it anyway....last night for dinner and again today for lunch. not gonna lie, i miss shar....

Dear Lawrel, I love you and I'm sorry....

i have to admit, I LOVE OLIVES. Lawrel, i know you'll be pissed, and i stuck it out not liking olives with you for a good long while...but, as they say, when in rome..or spain...the olives are amazing, i didnt like them at first, but they come with every tapas so i had to try them and, over time, i have grown to love them. now i cannot drink a vino tinto without the olives. i was always a fan of martinis (extra dirty) so it wasnt really that big of a step. it took some time, but i'm finally there. so i have to say, for the record, i'm sorry lawrel that you are now the only aufmuth that loathes olives. mmm, salty, garlicky, i'll have them any way.

in other news, excuse my silence in the blog world, have been experiencing some internet difficulties. taught me a good cultural lesson tho--instant gratification is purely an american need. the spanish are so much more laid back. i mean, they get stuff done, but only when it suits them. i'm practicing my zen-ness.

it has been SUNNY. gorgeous and everyday we walk to a new plaza and have new tapas whilst listening to new fabulous flamenco music...as it turns out, pretty much any song can be turned into flamenco: yesterday i heard frank sinatra, billie holiday, and my personal fav (Altho i dont know who sings it): sunny, thank you for the sun (help me out here)--actually pretty beautiful with a little acoustic guitar and flamenco rythym.
i feel like i have to get a week of bloggin in because you never know when the internet will go down for another week or so. we had some crazy tapas the other day...fried sardines (BIG sardines...well, i'll call them sardines but i dont actually know what they were, some scary fish) with a face fried open in terror (or grimace), kind of like a dragon with sharp teeth pointing out. jamie wouldnt try it but i did (not overly impressed couldve used some lemon or delicious dipping sauce, but always fascinating to dive into new things, even if they were a bit oily). took pictures of the fish among other things (Gorgeous mountains in the distance-sierra nevada- that i didn't know were there because of the rain)...am trying to upload on facebook, but like i said, depends on the internet conditions.
tonight (HAPPY V-DAY) jamie and i are having a romantic dinner for two at a mexican restaurant we stumbled across one day during our wanderings...even though our boyfriends are far and away, we have decided to commemorate this halmark holiday with an old fashioned fiesta (mexican style...complete with tequila shots and whatever else ensues)....
speaking of mexicans..not gonna lie we watched "y tu mama tambien" last night at our friend chandra's house (more on this in a second) and i really missed the mexican language. chandra asked us if we were having trouble understanding the mexican accent and i almost cried because it sounded like home.
our friend chandra is a gypsy and lives in a cave...like a real cave. her house is on the side of a mountain and you walk in to rooms that are dug out of said mountain. they are all painted white (in spanish they call it cal but i'm pretty sure its like lye or something because they said its good for killing bugs), and there are a bunch of connecting rooms and the floors are covered in carpets and the walls covered with hippie tapestries. very granada and very cool. the whole gypsy culture in granada is fascinating so it's awesome to know somebody to fill us in on such things. my one problem with the cave is that i think i would need a little bit more sunlight although apparently in the summer (when the temps reach 40 degrees celsius) it is the coolest place in the city, sin air conditioning.

phew, i think that's all the news i have. hopefully (fingers crossed) this internet service will continue and i can blog with slightly more consistency. happy valentine's day and happy weekend!

something i understand but cannot stand....

ok this has been buggin me for a while now, and i know it's just a cultural difference and nobody means anything by it, but i am sick and tired of being told i don't look spanish. because clearly i don't look spanish...i'm tall, i'm white, i have short hair, i wear colors (all these hip little twenty-something spanish chicks show up in their incredibly short denim skirts with a black or grey sweater, black or grey leggings, and black or grey boots...that and i dont have looong dark hair with straight across bangs). i can accept this, because i'm not trying to be spanish. but, and here's where the cultural difference becomes obvious, i would never approach somebody in a bar or on the street and say, straight forwardly, you are not american are you? firstly, after having lived in san francisco (probably one of the most diverse cities in the world), it's just not something you say to people, firstly because most people are not from sf, let alone the us and secondly because everybody looks different (america is a melting pot, we are all descendants of immigrants, etc etc). according to my culture teacher, jesus, the percentage of foreigners in the spanish population in 1980 totalled 0.4%, and obviously these spanish are notoriously monocultural (all the guidebooks say that which i find amusing). so there it is, they dont mean to offend me, they just notice i'm different because i am. and due to their inherent practicality and directness they feel the need to tell me...repeatedly...everyday. which is all good and well but when i'm trying really hard to speak beautiful, unaccented spanish i think i could at least get some props for my efforts. jesus told me to respond to them by saying, "si, y tu no eres chino"...but like i was saying, would i ever just roll up to somebody on the streets of sf and bust out, "yeah and you're not chinese!" in the states that's what we call politically incorrect, even verging on racist.
this minor irration may or may not have been amplified by the fact that jamie and i spent the entire weekend snuggled in my bed watching american movies and eating pesto. yes we watched four in one day...and half of a season of friends. i almost forgot i was in spain. until we went to get a tapas and asked the cute (and incredibly brittish looking) camarero "de donde eres?". obviously he said england and then continued with, "you two most certainly are not spanish" despite the fact that this entire exchange was in spanish...
i may be able to get used to eating lunch at 3 oclock, having all the stores close until 5, having my dinner at 10 and partying until dawn, but let's face it, i'm an american and i do how americans do and we just dont go calling people out on their obvious differences, its rude. and even though i know they mean no harm, i cant help but cringe every time i hear it. what's worse is feeling annoyed by it just further highlights that fact that i am clearly not spanish. i'm trying to be zen, a woman about the world...
so yeah, i don't look spanish...what else is new?

Estoy harta de....

Alright, so there’s no denying that the incessant rain is getting me down. I’ve been trying to rise above, and I honestly don’t mind getting wet, it’s just that this city really isn’t equipped for this kind of weather (which is probably why none of the natives are outside these days, and why they are all so grumpy when they are) and as a consequence my feet are always soggy (walking up a mountain with a river flowing down it is not conducive to staying dry)—I have decided to invest in rainboots tomorrow…of course, as soon as I do the rain will stop, but right now I’d pay good money for that so I might as well get a pair of rainboots out of the deal.
Anyway, there are definitely advantages to this harsh a winter: we get to learn all sorts of new useful phrases such as “Estoy harta de la lluvia” (I’m fed up the with the rain) plus more forceful and colloquial (that’s polite speak for learning how to swear in the Spanish) sentences such as “Estoy hasta el cono de la lluvia” (I’ll leave that one to the imagination).
But I think my favorite benefit of the poor weather is I find myself with much more time indoors and thus more time to myself. And what do I do when I’m alone with myself? I like to cook (and dance to shakira, which is neither here nor there). I should write a “rain-in-spain” cookbook with recipes of everything I’ve been whipping up this past week (although, ironically none of it has been Spanish cuisine). Strangely enough I have really delved deeply into my “Mexican roots” (I use quotation marks because I think I might be the least Hispanic person ever with all that german blood, but I’d like to believe that my love of Hispanic culture and cuisine supersedes mere genetic lineage). What I mean to say is that pretty much everything I have been preparing has been based in the Hispanic cooking tradition (with a little spontaneous Indian curry thrown in here and there, obviously). Tonight I made chicken mole tacos with garbanzo beans (couldn’t find hominy and the Spanish loooove their chickpeas—as do I) and let me tell you, I feel restored. It was like a little taste of home in a crazy backwards world where Spain gets rain and California doesn’t (I’m really trying to send some your way, I swear). Estoy harta de la lluvia…pero no puedo enfadarme cuando estoy llena del mole delicioso!

tornado? really?

alright, i just watched an bit on the news about a tornado in Malaga (south of here) that injured 25 people and dstroyed a bunch of houses. then they got this expert on telling us how spain is tornado-prone. talk about your crazy weather. we arent forecasted to see the sun again until sunday (and it's supposed to be only partly cloudy). the good news, all this inclimate weather is incredibly conducive to studying spanish verbs....am looking forward to the day (soon?) when i will be sick of sun and fondly recall these dark, cold, foggy days...until then, my flashcard pile steadily grows...

it's the little things....

this whole immersion program business has got me thinking: its amazing how much a person can learn in such a short period of time. it's the little things i notice--things that, when i first arrived i found frustratingly difficult to understand and aggravatingly hard to ignore--the small acts of settling into a new situation. for example: when watching "mr and mrs smith" while eating my curry (it was good, not great, i give it 3.5/5, although chock full of veg and very nutritious--missing my african spice collection that waits for me patiently in a box at the uhaul storage place) the 6 minute commercial breaks...a week ago they would've annoyed the hell out of me, i mean, come on, why must you have to wait 6 minutes to see your show. however, now i've become accustomed to them and use these 6 minutes to my advantage and go and do something else. i feel as though i should follow up on my week of frustration by adding that i am finally settling in. and i'm pretty sure i grasp (for the most part) the various schedules of things (farmacies, groceries, etc etc) i dont know if it was the zumba or the rum and cokes but last night i felt like i left all my inhibitions behind and really attempted to speak spanish without regard to my self-consciousness of making mistakes.
whats really crazy is that one day of sun made all of this bad weather worth it. the difference is the people...when it rains they stay indoors, but when the sun is shining they fill the streets with music, dance, and life. tonight was a terrible storm--the first lightning i've seen, very strange the kind that lights up the entire sky and you cannot see the bolt itself. followed by deafening claps of thunder. the storms blow throug here fast. i like to think that san francisco has a relatively variable climate, but serious, within any given day here you can see:sun, fog, hail, snow,rain, thunder, lightning, or humidity. and when its beautiful weather, the entire city lights up with exuberant energy. i am head over heels for the spaniard's passion for everything-food, drink, life. its an easy lifestyle to fall in love with. when the sun is out i have to pinch myself but it's finally sunk in that i'm living here until april and its such an amazing feeling to learn a vast amount of new information everyday....in all, it was a very satisfying and awesome weekend and i am fully rested and prepared to start another week of stuffing my brain new crazy spanish grammar....oh yeah.

la noche...

We started the evening off with a little cultural enrichment—our friend Xandra’s mother, Pilar, invited us to attend a play at the Teatro Alhambra in Realejo the star of which was a long time family friend from Madrid. A two person production entitled, “Arizona” it was all in Spanish obviously but surprisingly easy to understand. We of course knew nothing of the premise, as Pilar had only told us that it had very important themes and provocative messages—provacative indeed. I really do not have the words to describe it, it was simply written, set in the desert in Arizona where an American husband and wife set up camp to defend the US/Mexico border
“JUAN CARLOS RUBIO EXPLORA EL DOGMATISMO Y LA IRRACIONALIDAD DE LA INTOLERANCIA Y EL RACISMO A TRAVÉS DE DOS PERSONAJES QUE VAN ARQUETÍPICOS DE “CACERÍA” EN ARIZONA”
Basically the play explores the nature racism, xenophobia, and intolerance highlighting the irrationality of such fears. Suffice it say, without going into too much detail, there is a rape scene (nothing graphic but not expected) followed by the murder-suicide of the protagonists….obviously we had to go out for tapas after….
Pilar and Xandra were embarrassed that the play had been so openly critical of Americans and continuously reminded us that the themes could be applied universally. I was not offended at all, in fact I thought it was great theater and was very amused when the two characters spontaneously broke into song about defending the border from foreigners who want to rape and pillage our country. This was further reinforced when the lead in the play met us for a drink and apologized again and tried to explain the universality of the play. I wasn’t bothered at all and was more impressed that we were hanging out with the lead actor than anything else.
After some delicious tapas of all house cured meats, salchichons, pates, cheese and of course glorious olives (my love of olives is now solidified—I have converted and its impossible for me to tomo el vino tinto sin olivas) we went to a bar to dance. Ying, I just want to shout out a personal thank you to you, because I busted out my zumba moves like you wouldn’t believe. And we had a blast. Am still struggling with the smoking indoors and ashing on the floor (apparently you can also smoke pot in bars because EVERYone was doin it), but other than that the evening was a smashing success. The venue was a spot for “typical” Granada music which it seems to me is a blend of salsa, flamenco and any other sort of latin American rhythms (thus the zumba). Tried to explain what zumba is but obviously it doesn’t really exist here, probably because for them dancing the zumba is just another Saturday night. Didn’t make it home until late but it was worth it! Am looking forward to perfecting my moves and learning more, I love to shake it, and damn can those Spanish girls dance!

La mejor dia de la samana? SABADO!

First of all, I love how every Saturday morning, no matter if its sun or snow, everybody goes to market. Because this is the last day until Monday to purchase fresh meat, fish, and produce, all the shops are open. My favorite Saturday morning activity is to go down to Plaza Larga and have a café cortado y un tostada con montequilla y mermalada. After greeting all the homies in the cafeteria, we proceed to check out the wears at the farmers market, then on to the pescaderia, panaderia, carniceria and of course, the always-dependable coviran. This particular Saturday I purchased some very nice avocados to compliment my huevos rancheros. Of course, the other important part of this stroll is that everybody in town is out doing errands so you run into everyone you know in the streets, like your Spanish teacher, Rosa. This goes on until about two when everybody returns home for lunch, not to be seen again until the evening. Delicious huevos ranchers, by the way, instead of just putting them on top of tortillas I made a quesadilla for under my huevos complete with my enchilada/ranchero sauce from last weekend…yum. I also stocked up on fresh veggies for my cooking project of the weekend: chicken vegetable curry! Gerald, the german gave me a gift of curry as a goodbye, and thus I am using it to create more culinary wonders…I await the results...

HACE SOL Y ESTOY CONTENTA

first day of sun in granada....what can i say? except this:
Dale limosna, mujer, que no hay en la vida nada como la pena de ser ciego en Granada
(Give alms, my dear, for there is nothing worse in life than being blind in granada--plaque in the alhambra)
its true. sitting in the sunshine overlooking the albaicin and listening to a neighbor play flamenco guitar...yes, EVERYBODY comes out on the terazzas and practices their guitars (see my previous blog about the soundtrack to my new life). i couldnt begin to describe how amazing it is other than i havent felt this at peace with the world in a while. heading downtown later to be in the streets with the people, doing errands, eating tapas and generally enjoying the glorious weather. this is what granada is supposed to be in the winter, lets cross our fingers for more....

woohoo!

i found the antenna to my tv on the floor behind the tv. this may not mean much now, but i have been wondering why all the local channels come in like total crap (for two and a half weeks, mind you). not being handy with these sorts of things and fearing european electrocution, i attempted to reattatch said antenna. SUCCESS! am now able to receive with perfect clarity, canal sur 2 which plays a lot of the futbol (and buffy the vampire slayer reruns in spanish, obviously, which--sidenote--are suprisingly entertaining and educational in espanol, but which i have been watching through the fuzz and white noise of non-digital television...i digress) and is currently showing manchester united match. woohoo! i rule. if it wasnt a school night i'd consider heading down to the bar for some high def, vino tinto and conversation with the old sketchballs (naturally they get a big misogynistic kick out of girls watchin the futbol). for now i am content with the fact that i fixed something i previously had thought was broken, and, more importantly, i think i prefer to oogle my future husband in privacy tonight....a manana...

gol gool goool man u!!!

La semana de frustracion...

i think the first week living here everything was so new and exciting that i felt like i was on vacation. however, this last weekend the reality of living in a new city has finally started to sink in: not understanding the language (well trying, but constantly having to think things through about what you are saying and hearing), the semi-friendly but mostly unhelpful locals, the constant walking up and down mountains to do the smallest errrands (at least 30 minutes round trip if not longer), restaurants open til 5 but shops not until 5 and not after two, but bars only open at 10 and dinner at 9, weather that's more like san francisco in april or june (rain, fog, rain, fog) than spain...not that i am not having a blast, but last night the cumulative "frustration of the new" finally hit me full force. having spent the entire day yesterday on our feet and viewing a mediocre example of the local flamenco, jamie and i headed to our 'hood bar ( i use that term to mean specifically, the closest bar to my house where all the weird old dudes, the morrocan hash dealer, and other unsavory types tend to congregate, but where the owner is nice enough to remember jamie doesnt eat meat, serves us delicious tapas and otherwise leaves us to mind our own business) where we proceeded to let out our frustrations....lets call it a cathartic process.

after a solid night's rest, i decided to go about my domestic business, leaving the foreigness of spanish culture outside for a day...i should have known this was no easy task. once i finally figured out how to unfold my drying rack (on the front porch like all good spaniards without dryers) i set about to start a load of laundry....on the front porch...in the gathering storm. after jiggling with the nob and running back to my computer's online dictionary five or so times (wouldnt want to bleach or shrink all of my clothes on my first go), i finally got the damn thing started. only to find out that two hours later my clothes came out SOPPING wet. well, this didnt matter because it had seriously started to storm. so, i relocated the drying rack to the kitchen (this took some serious maguivering, believe you me) i began to wring out my clothes . (let it be noted that i started with a light load, mostly necessities, as a sort of trial run)... i stood out in the rain wringing out my drenched unmentionables for about an hour while jamie called spanish vocabulary at me from inside the warm house (high today was 7...that's about 40 but feels like a lot less when its hailing on your wet laundry). now, i've noticed that my neighbors have had the same laundry hanging in their backyard since last week (probably because it has rained everyday since then), so i thought i would be clever and set mine in the kitchen...and good thing i did, because about two hours later it started storming...torrential downpours of wintery mix complete with gusting winds (and i do not want my freshly laundered panties flying all around the albaicin). suffice it to say this experience did nothing to alleviate my frustration, especially when i have to duck under wet socks to access the fridge (see facebook for photo illustration).
i must say, however, that the enchilada project for today was an all day project resulting in a massive success (thankfully, otherwise i may have spun into a serious alien-culture depression without clean socks or mexican food). my refried beans are glorious and will last all week, the enchilada sauce was rich and savoury and will be perfect for a huevos rancheros brunch next weekend. though the comforts of home are few and far between, i find that a plate of homemade enchiladas (no matter where your kitchen is) can beat even the darkest homesick blues. my spirit renewed, i am dedicating my evening to studying all that i have learned in the last two weeks because tomorrow we begin level three and start to learn a whole new set of tenses and vocabulary. in the immortal words of scarlett o'hara, "tomorrow is another day."

Donde estan los guapos...?

I dont mean to speak ill of the spanish (and john, dont take offense, this is for purely cultural purposes...besos) but everybody told me before i left that i would be meeting like a million gorgeous spaniards per day, all beautiful, tall dark and handsome (obviously just how i like them). I dont know if its me and the Spanish just aren't my type or what, but i have yet to see a man sufficiently more attractive than one in san francisco. oh ok, that's not true, my downstairs neighbor, Sharif, from Australia, has a GORGEOUS boyfriend visiting...tall (6'3"), beautiful...Sharif basically had to wipe the drool off of Jamie's and my faces, but he doesn't count because he's Italian and gay. Maybe it's the weather? All the hunky ones remain indoors to maintain their perfectly coiffed dark hair, lest the wintery mix dislodge even a single strand? (That sort of vanity sounds like more of an Italian fixation, but if not that then what?) It is also possible, given my Americanness, that i have just not been out late enough. Last call in bars at home is first call at bars in Granada, and as fond as i am of the pub goin culture i have yet to indulge myself in an all-nighter--it is possible that i have just not been out in the city at the appropriate hours (do all the handsomes come out at night?). Tonight we are going out with a local friend, and i am determined to investigate this situation. Perhaps once i expand my cultural learnings beyond our little cuidad of Granada and its daily going-ons (we have a lot of hippies and hash-smoking morrocans here) i will come to understand the infamous nature and appeal of the spanish man. as of yet, i am confounded....until i meet the likes of Javier Bardem, i remain unconvinced....

gracias corte ingles....

yesterday jamie and i hiked all around the city in search of one thing: mexican food. and we found it at the corte ingles (basically like a department store but with a grande supermercado with imported foods underneath) and low and behold they have a "tex mex" section! oh you cannot believe my ecstasy. apparently old el paso makes a "burrito kit" and a "fajita kit" complete with tortillas, appropriate spices, and salsa. also, in the produce section i found a guacamole kit: two avocados, a tomato, a lime, and onion all wrapped up and packaged together, funny. i bought corn tortillas and this weekend i am going to make my own refried beans and my own enchilada sauce and then create glorious spanmexican food. jamie bought a box of ready-to-serve mole (which isnt that bad, altho unfortunately she doesn't eat meat so uses the sauce for beans and stuff), we also got an interesting roasted salsa. obviously nothing uber-authentic, but can't criticize those glorious spaniards for trying-LOVE IT!
ironically i assumed that i would be doing fabulous spanish cooking and here i am and the things i really crave are: refried beans, jeanne's pesto, and popcorn. plus i get to eat glorious spanish food everyday when i go for tapas. plus i need spicy things in my life and spaniards cant hang with the super spicy cuisine. altho they sure do know how to fry up potatoes and delish veggies. perhaps this weekend or early next week i will try my hand at some pisto (tons of veggies sauteen in olive oil with garlic and onion) but for now i am focusing on my mexican projects. and yes, i have eaten quesadillas everyday for the past three days, but is in part due to jamie's influence (girl loves mexican food as much if not more than i do!). hopefully one of these days when the weather gets warmer i can test some gazpacho recipes and all those delicious garlic soups they have in their parts (of course they are for the warmer months, and nobody saw this horrible winter coming).
tomorrow i am hosting a mini cena (dinner) at my apartment, and will be busting out the aufmuth pesto (obviously) a la waverley (shallots and mushrooms sauteed with goat cheese, and fresh tomoatos all tossed into the pesto...my special twist on an old fav). my mouth is already watering. yum. now that my fridge is stocked with all my favorite snacks and my pantry with all the necessary spices i can cook away to my little heart's content.

remember the wintery mix?

well we had that yesterday, in BUCKETS! totally reminded me of the lou, had to explain to jamie what it is (not snow not hail not rain but a mix of all). we were soaked cuz we walked into town (like 20 mins) and it was coooold. today looks sunny though, a break in the storms (another one moving in tomorrow). just wanted to shout out to my lou homies, wintery mix yo! what was the name of the hot weather man? Gary something? Em, i'm sure you remember...

um, si claro estamos famosas....

well. long story short, we went to hannigan & sons to watch the inauguration and talk about your good 'ole fashion cluster fuck, i think every american student in granada was there....i was having serious claustrophobia issues and you couldnt move at all (or hear the tvs). luckly jamie and i are so good at granada that we knew about another hannigan & son (there are two here, one in el centro y uno en reallejo) so we went to the other--much less crowded so we were able to get a seat, have a drink, etc etc. well, the inaugural address was pretty inspirational ( i could listen to him talk for a long time, am jealous of his law students) and afterward we went to a bar where the camarero (Antonio) was muy sympatico y just fantastic. he loved to cook so shared all his favorites and special tapas with us--adorable. oh, at the bar (hannigan & sons) there were these dudes filming for canal sur 2 (local news station) and we kinda ignored them....BUT turns out me and jamie are on local NEWS. we had made a "obmanonos" shirt for her (claro i was wearing my obama rama t). so anyway at this other bar we were totally on the local news and everybody thought we were totally famous. am looking for it online, or on youtube because it is TOO funny. so now we are super famous in granada. time for bed but today was incredibly amusing. besos.

um...

walked out of class and was hailed upon...then it snowed. now its sunny and beautiful. wtf. happy obama day (i am going to a "fiesta obama" at an irish pub, will report back).

the rain in spain...

falls mainly on my head in granada. was speaking to one of my professors today who said hes lived here 9 years and never owned an umbrella. so, first week here, coldest week in 50 years, second week here and it has rained twice. talk about your global warming.
in other very exciting news, i am such a baller at spanish that i got moved up to the smart class, which means jamie and i will be in the same class and can do our deberes together but more importantly, i dont have to sit there and listen to the same words repeated over and over to the american dude that doesnt pay attention. i am over the moon, i will for sure be fluent in three months!

i know i'm a nerd but..

one of my favorite aficiones (hobbies) at mi apartmento is to watch tv with my computer in front of me (wordreference.com, my new best friend cuz its a dictionary and the smartest website ever--it conjugates verbs for me and tells me if my words are mexican or spanish, a big help so i dont sound like a central/south american all the time) and look up all the words i dont know. in my down time i watch disney channel shows like "wizards of waverley place" and that jamie lynn spears show...totally lame but it's so great for learning the espanol. and then there's the usual fare of really messed up and weird spanish movies (lots of death, adultery, whatnot) and my fav, the guinness book of world records show where they have people do stuff and then they get a medal if they break the record. ive also seen this show about these two girls who are twins but dont know each other (still trying to figure out how that works) and people get them confused all the time, its a spanish show and i'm loving it...kind of reminds me of veliebt in berlin (hilary, remember?). its hard for me to get used to watching the news at 9, probably cuz of 24 years of the news being on at 6 (but obviously here everybody gets home from work at 9 so that's when the dinner/news hour is). so i sit and drink my vino tinto, watch my shows and make flashcards for the words i dont understand....it's a fun game.

feelin kinda sunday...

sundays are definitely the greatest day of the week here. without a doubt. you get to sleep in (always a plus) and because a large majority of shops are closed (especially in our neighborhood) there's really nothing to do but go out for lunch. (todo la gente is out with their families and adorable babous, chillin out and eating). We sat in the Plaza de Ortegas for about four hours people watching and having beers and tapas. Of course the usual street folk were there, and a glorious sountrack of flamenco guitar served to highlight the total spanishness of the experience. it was so stereotypically what you think of spain, basking in the sun with your tapas while the little kids run around and women dance flamenco in the streets, it is unreal. theres no hurry nor rush and not a care in the world, all any of us have to do is just be, and if the camarero feels like passing our way, maybe we order una mas cana.
in other news, i found palomitas (popcorn) at the grocery store so have not only learned the word for popcorn but showed jamie my technique-shes only ever done the microwave version so i'd like to think i opened her up to a whole new world of popportunity (ha, like that?). suffice it to say she was impressed with my skills. i did it full on waverley style, complete with garlic salt and parsley. i may be able to give up burritos for three months (probably better for me anyway), but popcorn? you gotta be crazy.

whats that soundtrack...

theres something to be said for the morrocan music that pervades everywhere and i finally figured out why...you know its the street hippies who sit on the corner and play their flutes or their flamenco guitars...but its like everywhere you go there is this totally chill beat in the background, very mellow soundtrack to my new life. obviously that gets broken up with really great american pop in the bars (and of course kate perry...but hey, i'm down with the kissed a girl song so why not) then back on the streets for some mellow opium den tunes. the morrocan/muslim influence here is really interesting like that, its everywhere but you dont necessarily notice it at first. for example, when the catholics took over spain they built their churches on top of all of the mosques, so the outside facades are all beautiful gothic or baroque buildings but a lot of times inside there will be remants of morrocan terraces, lots of beautiful tile work, etc. so what you see is very classic european but underneath are the heavy north african influences. our cultural program leader monica says this is because when the catholics took over they literally implanted their culture on top of muslim culture (instead of attempting to erradicate it completely) so that the influences still remain underneath, like the skin of an onion or some equally cheesy analogy. it's surreal, last night we stood and looked at the beautiful cathedral in the center of the city while two little hippie kids were playing morrocan flutes and dancing. such a great cultural blend. same can be said in the food...lots of times we will get a tapas where the sauce will have slight curry undertones...not a strong flavor just the slight undercurrent of curry. Still waters run deep as they say...

Holy tapas batman!

Patatas sofritos con cebollas, pimienton, y ajo.
Aceitunas (-olives, which i'm eating every day so i will teach myself to like them...actually they are tasting more and more like a martini which i have a deep-seated love for so hey, i'm down).
Papas fritas (total mexican way to say french fries but whatev) con un salsa that can only be described as gloriously garlicky delicious...sort of like romesco but with a buttload of garlic and salt, sooooo good.
Salchichon in olive oil con ajo and i dont even know what other delicious things.
Boquerones fritas con ajo y limon.
Suffice it to say that the most fun drinking game in spain is playing the tapas....the more you drink the more you get to eat, so why not eh? SO delish....jeanne, you would've flipped your lid over these fried anchovies and both Gerald (my new german friend in Jamie's class) and Jamie thought they were too fishy so i had the whole plate to myself, oh yeah.
In other news, Gerald is german so i get to speak the german with him and when we dont understand each other in english or german we use spanish or french. the other german dude, Felix, told Gerald i had great german and so now all my peeps think i am fabulously multi culti and quadrilingual....you know, cuz that's how i roll (apparently my languages get better when i drink and eat the tapas).

Eat your heart out, NYU...

i am such a food culture nerd and i'm so fine with that. i think i learned more in my culture class today than i have all week in spanish. so many verbs (to whisk, to mix, to add, to bake) it just makes me tingly all over! not only that, but the history of food culture in spain and how the four main historical periods (visigoths, romans, moors, and the age of discovery i.e. columbus) influenced the food they eat here, not to mention regional influences as well. so fascinating! it's too much to take in at once and now that i'm home for siesta i need to do some serious rereading with wordreference.com in front of me but i'm just so geeked out about all the glorious cultural learnings.
Unfortunately next week there will be another student with me in culture class...i say unfortunately because that means the class cannot be focused solely on my interests (mainly food and history), however it is advantageous because i will have culture class for an hour each day instead of an hour and a half twice a week. i very much enjoy my one on one time with Jesus, as he is also a total foodie so its exciting to be able to share that with someone.
Today Jesus brought me a selection of his own personal cookbooks: one specific to andalucia, one that focuses on primero platos but has both old and "new" cuisine (more on that in a second..), and the third was his father's cookbook from his grandmother, something along the lines of my osterizer cookbook, from 1967. he said i could keep them as long as i needed them and if he needed somethign from them he would ask me to bring them to him, also he said he would photocopy any recipes and explain anything i wanted. i am in spanish foodie heaven. he is an incredibly enthusiastic teacher, and we went through the books looking at our local regional cuisine, his favorite recipes, and of course he busted out the postres for me--Spanish desserts are nowhere near on par in terms of creativity or history as the rest of western europe and the US, but i believe there is much to be said for making doughs with flour, sugar, olive oil and lemon zest then frying the sh*t out of them and soaking them in honey. Specifically here in andalucia there is a very heavy north african influence so you use a lot of almendras y miel. Also they seem to really be into meringues and light fluffy things of that nature (think baked meringues, crunchy and airy, lots of lemons and almonds).
As far as "new cuisine" goes, according to Jesus all of the big chefs and creative, modern food comes from a territory in the north, Pais-Vasco , where the fish is the freshest in the world and the produce is unbelievable (so i hear). It is the foodie capital of Spain but as far as i can tell it doesnt really seem to influence the rest of the country. Personally i dont really care one way or the other about innovation in Spanish cuisine because right now i am so enchanted by the history and the romance of it all. Particularly in Andalucia where there is a such an influx of foreign products (Sevilla had the monopoly on imported goods from the Americas, and this region also benefited greatly during its moorish years as the new spice route for those trying to avoid the crusaders).
...Suffice it to say, I'm loving it, solo quiero ir de tapear y comer todo!

me gusta mucho mis siestas

although all the young folk seem to think the infamous siesta is antiquated, i am not gonna lie, i am loving my midday nap. my understanding is that siesta is more widely accepted and participated in by the younger generation during the summer when it is unbearably hot in the middle of the day and not so much in the winter when the weather at high noon is much milder...yesterday daniel was laughing at jamie's and my fondness of the noonday snooze, but hey when in rome right? especially if you're not gonna be eating dinner until late, i see no reason not to indulge oneself in a lazy lunch followed by a few zzzs. in fact, i find no better way to spend the afternoon hours, when all shops are closed anyway....i'm bringing the siesta home with me, one way or another...

Apparently i am really mexican...

last night my friend jamie and i decided to do some grocery shopping and have a little cena at mi apartmento. coincidentally (or not really, as it turns out) as she was leaving her house she ran into a boy that she met on the bus into town, Daniel, a very nice spanish fellow who's parents are hippie brit expats living in Ibiza. With a beautiful command of english and spanish, Daniel was the perfect companion for our first real city exploration--we embarked to the city center to find the cheaper mercadora (supermercado con todo). thankfully he was our guide because i'm sure between the two of us we would have been hopelessly lost--Granada, although small, is difficult to navigate a) because the map we have totally sucks and none of the streets look like they go in the same direction on the map and b) because this is an ancient moorish then christian city with all sorts of crazy twisty turny streets that take you nowhere, or somewhere depending on what you're trying to accomplish. after completing our grocery run, daniel assured us a "10-12 minute walk" back to my apartment....actually it took us 35-40 minutes and was mainly uphill...like mountainous uphill on cobblestone streets. suffice it to say if i get worried about working out i can just go down to the city center and come back up and i'll be fine.
Given that Jamie (being from texas) is a lover of all things mexican like myself, we decided to make guacamole (which Daniel insisted would be better if we just bought, a suggestion we shot down emphatically). Back at mi apartmento we drank wine, ate the guac, and compared our knowledge of spanish slang (because that's what you have to do with your first spanish friend, especially one that speaks fluent english). of course we thought we were pretty badass, which apparently we are not. every phrase out of our mouths (even our MOST offensive--the kind that would have mexican men blushing and mexican women tryin to fight us) was greeted with a full-belly laugh and "you can say that, but then everyone will laugh and think you are mexican". luckly daniel filled us in on the big four swear words so now, are we ever in need, we can bust it out. we also learned how to say "spittin game" which i think will come in handy sometime in the future.
At the supermercado we found flour tortillas, so our next cooking project is to make quesadillas or burritos. i'm thinking of going really oldschool and making my own frijoles refritas (another very mexican thing to say, here beans are judias not frijoles), salsa, aguacate, etc. etc. I am also looking forward to my culture class tomorrow for i intend to ask mi professor, Jesus, to bring some Spanish recipes that i can try out this weekend in my kitchen (Cuando esta in Espana, cocina la comida espanol, y por que no?) There is a daily television show on at about 2 in the afternoon featuring a very flamboyant singing chef who cooks all sorts of delicous looking things. i also intend to choose his most interesting recipe and attempt it. today was stuffed calamaris with a tomato sauce on top, looked delicious but i'm thinking a little more simplistically for my first go. Everyday i am more and more happy i chose to have my own apartment--my own space, and (as i get more comfortable with my spanish vocabulary) my own kitchen for cooking whatever my little heart desires. ah, la dolce vita.....

Cats y Catholics

Interesting fact i learned today: in 1492 when the Spanish kicked out all of the jews and muslims from spain, an important part of proving your christianity was eating pork...which is why eating pork (chorizo, salchichon, etc) is so important today in spanish society, something about that fear of being called out as different and complying with the rule stuck and now the spanish love their cerdo. go figure. also, apparently the reason their arent any philosophers in spain is because the spanish language is simplistic--one word having so many meanings--great for spanish poetry, not so great for contemplating the metaphysics and meaning of life in any specific manner. thus the reason german is a great language for philosophizing--one meaning, one word, lots of words to choose from to mean exactly what you are trying to say.
and i'm not clear on the policy on feeding the cats. they seem to belong to everyone and one can leave kitty litter outside ones front door as one sees fit. not being a cat person myself, i find this sort of behavior hard to adopt or understand.
just a few thoughts from my day today...learn something nuevo todo las dias...

some observations....

Started school today, great fun. beginning language classes are always a blast for me, especially when its immersion style. an observation though-perhaps its because i'm american but i cant get over the Spanish lisp thing (th) as opposed to the American Spanish s sound. it drives me crazy. i cant get myself to say it, i feel like i'm talking with a speech impediment. my teachers keep correcting me and laughing at my mexican spanish. ah well, i do have a love for all things mexican so lets just chalk it up to that. another thing, why do they use the 24 hour clock if they are going to refer to the time in manana and tarde? it's just confusing. if you say 2 oclock then the clock should say 2 not 14. petty, i know, but those are the things i have noticed today that keep tripping me up. am having difficulty posting pictures onto my blog so my beautiful prose will have to suffice. it a great day in granada, sunny, altho the mornings and evenings are very frio. jesus, one of my professors, says this is one of the coldest weeks in granada in 50 years (that could also explain the crazy madrid snow). hopefully the days will continue to grow warmer, although my radiators and wool blankets do a great job at night, i definitely did not pack my most moutainous warm clothes. in hindsight i wouldve packed more fleece and less fashion, alas, what can you do.