Classtime!

A couple things before the real post.

First off, you probably heard on the news about the train accident on the outskirts of the city a few days ago. According to the news, over 150 people were killed or injured in the accident, which was caused by too much speed going around a curve. I'm not going to make any speculations or accusations, I just want to say that I'm fine and every one I know here is fine, but there are a lot of people who aren't fine, and it's a tragedy that this happened.

Secondly, a continuation of the theme from a couple posts ago--dealing with bureaucracy. I just found this little video that was originally for a short film contest that depicts really well the struggle in dealing with bureaucracy, not only in Spain but anywhere. 

Fun times.

And speaking of fun times, this time without the sarcasm, the summer course at USC. Not University of Southern California, the other one. 

We took a little trip to Padrón, the hometown of
 Rosalía de Castro, the mother of Galician literature.

The course was intensive, but short. Three and a half weeks total. Classes started at 9:30 every morning and ended at 11:30, followed by a half hour for coffee and socializing, then some kind of cultural or linguistic presentation by a guest speaker, or a film in Galician. (There's some pretty good Galician films out there, and Spanish films in general. If you have the chance, check out O Apóstolo, a spooky and beautiful stop motion film.) This part of the day usually lasted until around 1:30, 2:00. Just in time for lunch. In the afternoons/evenings there were extra optional activities, such as seeing a dance recital, or a poetry reading, or a visit to the cultural museum. 

I was in the Elemental 1 class, which had about 13 students including myself, from all over the world--Argentina, Germany, Iran... We were the only students who had not previously studied Galician in a classroom setting, which at first I found surprising, but the realized it made sense for students who had studied Galician at college would jump at the chance to study for a month in the Galician capital. Most of these students were filología students, or language/comparative literature students with an emphasis in Romance or Western Romance languages. In Europe, these students are required to study at least three languages (if I remember correctly), so it would make sense to choose three that are quite closely related. 

At first I was disappointed in my placement (level 1! But I've been in Galicia for months!) but by the end I was happy with it. Even though I may have picked up a few words and a good level of understanding, I had (heck, still have) only a shaky grip on the grammar and was really only Galician-izing my Spanish.

It was nice being in such a small class, with students who actually wanted to learn to speak the language. This compared to my Spanish classes in college, where even in the 300+ level courses very few people voluntarily spoke the language, except maybe those who had just returned from study abroad. "I'll just pick it up when I go to a Spanish-speaking country" they said. "But you're in Spanish class right now" I said, "con gente que sí habla un poco y que debe practicar ahora cuando estén en una situación tranquila y sin riesgos" Or something along those lines in a much more broken fashion. 

But I'm getting off topic. Here are a few highlights of some of the extracurricular activities.

A staircase in the cultural museum

This is the Castro de Baroña, much better preserved than the one in Vilardonga, but without the snazzy museum

Taken from a bridge in a riverside park where we had a group lunch with all the students and teachers

I went on a little hike with some of my classmates to this church in Pontedeume

Proof I was there, I guess.

At the end of the course, there was a mini graduation ceremony, where the President of the Real Academia Galego gave a little talk and we all got certificates of completion. There was of course free wine and empanada afterwords. 

As a whole, the course was a lot of fun, and probably the most multicultural experience I've ever had. It was hilarious listening to non-American non-Spaniards make the same complaints and compliments that me and my American/English-speaking friends have made, and learning about how things are done in other parts of the world. Fried eggplant for breakfast in Romania? Supermarkets open Sundays in Argentina? How to say "cheers" in German? (Prost!)

But now that my time as a student is over, I have to return again to "real life" and start doing some grown-up things, like looking for an apartment come fall, and getting a public library card. I guess it can all wait til Monday though, once things are open again.

Aventuras de Cocinar II

Hola, amigos. Os voy a escribir otro post en castellano sobre mis aventuras de cocinar. Don't forget, to read it in English, just paste the URL into google translate. 

El plato que voy a enseñaros es menos complicado que lo de antes.Y también menos sana.  Se llama "huevos revueltos al microondas y patatas fritas al horno." Los fogones del piso en Santiago son un poco más peligrosos que los de Lugo y por eso estoy buscando recetas que no los necesitan. Los etapas son los siguientes:

Primera Etapa: Las patatas. 

Bueno, antes de cortarlas, hay que lavarlas. Yo sólo usé una, porque estaba cocinando solo por mi mismo. Después de lavarlas, córtelas en trozos finos y todos del mismo tamaño para que tardan igual en asar.

Pon los trozos en un cuenco grande y lávalos. Échales un poco de aceite, sal y especias. A mi me gusta pimienta negra y pimentón picante. Mezclalos bien y mételos en el horno a las 175 grados (centígrados).

Segunda Etapa: Los huevos.

Agrega los ingredientes. Puede ser lo que queras, sólo el huevo es obligatorio. Prefiero echar un poco de leche y algo de verduras. Carne también es una opción. 

El que hacer es muy sencillo. Pon un huevo (o dos) en un cuenco (o taza grande, lo que sea) eche un poco de leche, y cortar los verduras en trozos muy finos. Mezcla todo y mételo en el microondas. 

¡Ten cuidado! El microondas es un instrumento muy poderoso. Por eso es muy fácil arruinar el plato. El truco es poner el energía bajo y sacar la mezcla cada 45 segundos más o menos para removerla. Repita esta procesa hasta que los huevos no sean crudos.

¡Remúevela!

Tercera Etapa: ¡Comer!

Después de 20 minutos en el horno las patatas ya están hechos. Con tal que no las cortases demasiado gordas. 

Qué buena pinta

Rico, fácil y no hay mucho que limpiar después!

The Quest for the Holy ID Card

One of the difficult things about living abroad is the mountains of paperwork required to do so. Legally. And in order to stay in Spain, I have to renew my ID card, which seems to be equally as difficult as getting the visa in the first place.

So, in an effort to avoid the soul-crushing frustration and anger, I imagined that I was on a quest. Going forth into strange lands, completing tasks, figuring out puzzles and enlisting allies to defeat the agents of bureaucracy before Ganondorf found the rest of the triforce and... I'm getting off track.

I won't subject you to too many details, but here are some points that really struck me as jerkish.  I know they weren't being intentionally jerkish, but from my point of view that's how it seems. 

There is very little communication between the various branches of government, specifically, the Ministry of Education and whoever the heck it is that deals with foreigners and paperwork. The Xunta sent me a list of documents I needed to bring to the Extrajería (these being proof of employment this year and last year, photocopies of my passport and old TIE, form "EX00" and another form saying that I'd paid the fee), but once I went to the actual office, I was told I needed like three other things (an empadronamiento or "proof of civil registry" and a photocopy of my insurance card. Yes two is like three) but I did not need the fee form. Also I needed two copies of everything, not one.

In the end it was all fine and I got everything squared away, plus the bonus of getting to know my way around the old part of Santiago while I desperately hunted out a photocopy place that was open before 10am (FYI, there is not). Now I just have to wait and hope that they send the thing to my mailbox and not the neighbors, because there seems to be some confusion as to which apartment is 2A and which is 2B. (Good job Spain, way to be on top of things.)

In other news, Santiago has been nice, if hot. The Galician course has been interesting so far, and I'll probably do a real post about it later. In the meantime, here's a picture I took walking home the other day.

Na Rúa San Pedro

Grand Tour Part VII: The Nation's Capital

Is it capital or capitol? I'm never sure and don't care quite enough to bother looking it up. Either way, what DC is to the States, Madrid is to Spain. It's also the largest city in the country, with over 3 million inhabitants and an extensive rail/metro system. It is also one of the most expensive places, and between high rents, metro tickets and everything else I can see why the Madrid Auxiliars get an extra 300 euros a month. Since we couldn't find a hostel that looked nice and still within our price range, we went with an alternative and stayed with a nice couple who lived in the afueras and rented out their spare bedroom to travelers. We did this in Gijón as well, I just didn't mention it.

We arrived late in the afternoon on Sunday, chatted with the couple who lived in the house, and went for a walk to recuperate from the bus ride from Sevilla. The next day we planned our excursion and headed out into the city. The cercanias train station was a short five minute walk from the house, and after some initial confusion it turned out to be quite convenient. (there are three seperate systems of things that run on rails and look like trains in Madrid: the metro, the national railway system RENFE, and the cercanias, which I guess could be translated literally "closenesses" or better "train that services the neighborhoods at the edge of the city")

The word for royal in Spanish is real, while the word for real is real.  hmm...

Our first stop, and the thing I was probably most excited for was the Royal Palace. This is one thing that we most certainly do not have in the states: royal palaces with real live royals living in them. Our founding fathers might through a fit if we did, but it'd still be pretty cool.

Of course, since the royal family actually lives here, not all of it is open to the public. But the parts that are are very impressive. Photos are not allowed, so I'll try to paint a picture in words. (this is a test of my memory more than anything else) 

Once you pay for your ticket and go through security, you walk across the big stone courtyard pictured to the left and go through one of the three sets of double doors at the far end. From there you go up a grand marble stair to the first floor (second for Americans) and begin your tour of the public rooms. 

The rooms themselves are edged with gold where the walls and floor and ceilings meet (no, the ceilings and floors do not meet) and each one has a different theme, usually pulled from mythology or biblical scenes. The ceilings are painted with huge, detailed frescoes that are equal parts work of art and optical illusion. Sculptures erupt from the molding and take part in the picture, in what Rick Steves calls a "multimedia extravaganza." The whole place is lit with crystal chandeliers. And although these are beautiful today, I can only imagine how they must have looked with changing, flickering candlelight making all the facets sparkle, rather than blaring, static electric lights. 

Also featured is the biggest single dining room tables I have ever seen. With a table like that, I could invite my entire extended family over for thanksgiving, including all the Mormon cousins and their babies and still have enough room for a NWICSA-wide flip cup competition. And place settings, my goodness! Like five different glasses and twelve different silverwares! 

I don't want this to go on for too long, so I'll leave one last tidbit: the Royal Stradivarius collection. There are a few hundred Stradivariuses (Stradivari?) left in the world, and the Spanish royal family has six of them--a full quintet made by Antonio Stradivari specifically for the Spanish royal family (two violins, two cellos and one viola) as well as a child-size violin. When the Queen is in the mood for some chamber music the instruments get pulled out and tuned up, but most of the time they are on display in atmospherically-controlled glass boxes. 

For lunch we went to another cultural site, the museo de jamón or "ham museum." I'm being deliberately misleading here. The museo de jamón is a restaurant chain that specializes in ham products. Again, we had to wait in line, but not that long and without any surprising coincidences. 

Looking down at the bar/butchershop. I can't even count the number of pig legs hanging up

Madrid, like DC (apparently. I've never been), is home to some of the biggest and best museums in the country. The two really famous ones that we saw were the Reina Sofia, the modern art museum and home to the Guernica, and the "classical" art museum the Prado, home to two versions of Saturn Devouring his Son and much much more. 

Both museums are free to the public the last two hours before they close, but two hours is really not enough time to appreciate everything there, and especially at the end of the day when your feet are sore and you're ready to go home. I won't say anything more about these two because I know I can't do justice to the art inside.

For dinner we had tapas and churros con chocolate. Churros con chocolate (which consists of a plate of deep-fried churros and a cup of thick, pudding-like hot chocolate) is usually a breakfast thing, but breakfast for dinner is just about the best dinner option, even if you feel slightly sick afterwards.

In Amsterdam, I think my favorite thing we saw was the botanic garden (I'll admit, the warm greenhouses played a big part), so the Royal Botanic Garden of Madrid was on my must-see list. As a result, I think I took way too many photos. A lot of them were under the presumption that I could later go back and look at them all and become more well-versed in plant and tree identification, but we'll see if that actually happens. 

I don't think I can even read all those little signs

This is my favorite photo

We then retired to Parque del Retiro for a picnic, where we saw a crazy man, made friends with some cats and were attacked by hundreds of baby spiders. We also stopped for an ice cream just next to this big lake.

There were fish in the lake

We did see two more cool things while we were in Madrid: the Naval Museum and the "La Caixa" Forum. I've been to boaty-type museums before and they just haven't done it for me. Kind of musty-smelling with a bunch of model boats and nothing is explained very well. But I should have figured this one would be above and beyond the Maritime Museum in Victoria. Spain's naval history goes back hundreds of years--battling the British, pillaging the Americas and fighting off pirates... It was all very exciting! They even had the first ever European map to feature the "New World." Not super accurate, but it's the thought that counts.

The other thing, the La Caixa Forum, was surprisingly good as well. It's this big building in the center of the city that houses 2-4 rotating exhibits year-round and is free for bank members (like me!). When we went, there was a photo exhibition on infrastructure, and a more museum-y piece on Mesopotamian mythology, art and architecture. The photos were okay, but the Mesopotamian stuff was incredible. Maybe it helped that I had recently read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, but I was blown away by the delicacy, the complexity and the ancientness of the things on display.

And that was the end of our trip. We sat outside the Forum for a bit, hoping the pigeons would fall into the water feature as they tried to drink (one did, but it was missing a foot) and discussed the stuff we'd seen and done, got the money squared away and made our plans for the next morning when we would head to our respective homes.

Looking up at the garden wall outside the Forum

I think what I liked most about this trip was how easy it was to fall back into being with someone from back home because honestly, that has been something that I have been worrying about. People change, and I can only hope that I haven't and won't become insufferably snooty even if I do drink wine and give little air kisses when saying hello and/or goodbye.

kiss kiss

Grand Tour Part VI: All That Stuff I Mentioned Earlier

One thing that I think I did not mention is that Sevilla is a wonderful city, at least in terms of atmosphere and things to see. It's a big city, but with a ton of history and flowering trees. It was founded by the Phoenicians and later conquered by the Romans, Goths, Moors and Castillians who all piled layers of architecture and culture and flavor on top of each other to create the lasagna that is Sevilla today (no, they do not eat lasagna there, but it was the best layered food I could think of). 

Since I don't really remember the order in which we saw things, I'm going to talk about them in the order that I listed in the previous post.

Looking up at the bell tower from the patio of orange trees

1. The Cathedral
I think I've described other cathedrals as huge, but this one tops them all. Inside, in a glass case you can see the proof for yourself--this is the largest cathedral in the world by area, Guinness World Record Certified. Which to me begs the question: Which is the largest by volume? Mass? (tee-hee) But apparently it is not the biggest church in the world. It could have been, but someone thought better of upstaging the Vatican and decided against it.

Besides being impressively big, the cathedral is also famous for originally being a mosque, but the conquerors decided, hey, this is a nice, big building, why tear it down? So instead they added it and consecrated the land. Did you know that to make a place Holy Land, all you need to do is bury a relic and have a priest bless the land?

A couple more neat things: the bell tower was originally a minaret, from where the Imam would call the worshipers to prayer. Now, the imam position was usually filled by an older man and that is a very tall tower. So what their solution was was to, instead of putting stairs in, put a ramp so that the elderly Imam could ride his donkey up and down five times a day rather than walk up god knows how many flights of stairs. There are 34 ramps that go up in a square spiral to the top, and then a small flight of stairs to the observation deck where you can see the city and the 20-something bells. Heather and I were sure to start heading back down before the bells struck the hour.

The last thing that deserves mentioning is the Patio de las naranjas. A relic from Muslim times, the lines you see on the ground are not just decorations, but an intricate watering system for the trees. There are five fountains, one at each corner and one in the middle, and if you lift a little gate on the fountains, you can let water run through the system of miniature canals that run through the patio.

2. The General Archive of the Indies
The archive is home to all (I'm not sure if this is all-all or just Spanish) documents pertaining to the new world between the 16th and 19th centuries. Journals, maps, trade agreements and a million other forgotten things. Today it's a research library and a really fricking huge one with (according to wikipedia) 9km of shelves, 43,000 volumes of works, and 80,000,000 pages. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of it is on display, but at least entrance is free. Heather and I ran into a bit of trouble with the security guards however, when the metal detector detected the silverware we had borrowed from the hostel for our picnic lunch. The security guard thought it was hilarious though, and we got our knives and forks back at the end. (no photos were allowed inside)

3. Maria Luisa Park
Just a big, beautiful European-style park, right close to the Plaza de España. We happened to stop by a modern art museum in the park as well, where we got to play with a one-way mirror and take ice into a large wooden tube. (modern art. Don't ask.)

4. Plaza de España
This plaza, along with a lot of other things in Sevilla, was built for the 1929 World's Fair, which never actually happened due to a minor economic crisis. It has since been used in such films as Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars: Episodes I & II and I could totally see why a someone would want to use it as a setting for some grand and foreign land.

This picture doesn't show it well, but along the foot of the building there are a series of alcoves where each province capital of Spain has a little fresco and map painted on tiles. Below is the one for Lugo where you can see the Moor surrendering to the Christians just outside the muralla with the cathedral (in blue) on the right and the plaza del campo (I think??) on the left.

5. Photo Exhibit
The photo exhibit was just a block away from the plaza, in one of the pavilions built for the World's Fair. It was a big domed affair, with all the curves and gaudiness of the time. I could totally imagine classy art deco folks dancing to modern jazzy music between the columns. 

The exhibit was a little odd and not really what I was expecting. The premise was photos of housing developments in crowded/extreme places and conditions, but the artist took some liberty and photoshoped in some ultramodern/futuristic/unrealistic/fantastic houses/boats/giant shell things.

But at least the building was pretty.

6. Bull Ring
We were in Sevilla, so I felt almost obligated to check out the bull ring. And while I disagree with the idea of bullfights, the museum and tour guide were very interesting. In the museum you can see a few paintings, some taxidermied bull heads, matador costumes and some very scary looking implements of destruction. The tour shows more than just the museum though and we also got to see the chapel where the bullfighters pray before the fights, where they keep the mules (or were they donkeys?) and the ring itself, which is the second biggest in Spain, after the one in Madrid. Some fun facts: there is a special door through which the matador can exit if he gets a perfect score, and that the prizes for getting points are the ears and tail of the dead bull.

7. Scenic Path
The path was not really a destination in and of itself, but one of the routes we could take to get from point A in the north of the city to point B in the south. It was quite scenic, except where a construction project blocked off part of the path and we had to walk around it. Pictured below is one of the bridges that cross the Guadalquivir.

This bridge was built by the same architect who did the Eiffel Tower

Tomorrow, Madrid!

Grand Tour Part V: On the Banks of the Guadalquivir

I love the name of the Guadalquivir, the river that runs through Sevilla. Like a lot of the more beautiful words in Spanish, it comes from Arabic, meaning literally Great River. Not the most creative, but this is coming from the girl who lived for a year in a city called place. (LUCUS [lat.: place] --> Lugo /'lu.ɣo/)

We arrived in Sevilla just as the sun was setting, sticky and tired and uncomfortable from the seven hour bus ride, only to find out that I had screwed up the reservations and had failed to book us a room for that night. Fortunately the guy at the desk was still there and ready to to his job, and the hostel had space available. 

The first morning in Sevilla we went on one of the free walking tours offered to the hostel goers. I am a huge fan of these tours. Besides being free (well, you're supposed to give the guide a tip, but it's up to you how much if any) they're a great way to get to know the city, meet the other folks in your hostel, and see the sights while someone tells you about them! Given the option between reading something and having someone tell me about it, I will choose having someone tell me about it 9 times out of 10. (whether or not I remember it is another thing)


After some delicious pizza (recommended by the tour guide) we went, if I remember correctly, to the Real Alcázar of Sevilla. This is the royal palace in Sevilla, and the Borbones (Spain's royal family) stay there when they're in town. The building is in the mudéjar style, which is a mix of Moorish and Christian styles of the era (13- and 1400's). I did get an audioguide, but it was quite vague and it was difficult to tell exactly what it was talking about and the order in which to look at things, so I ended up wandering around, snapping photos of the gardens and the palace with the rest of the tourists. 

I ended up getting lost in the gardens a little bit, but it was a nice kind of lost. It was also nice to imagine having something so grand and beautiful not as my main house, but as my extra, weekend-away house. Say what you like about the Borbones, but they've got style.

Awnings to keep the sun off

By the time Heather and I found each other again (did I mention how huge the place was? We must have spent more than an hour and a half just wandering around, and I'm sure I didn't see everything) we were understandably tired, even though the weather forecast did not pan out, and the temperature was well below 94 degrees (thank god), we were understandably tired and returned to the hostel for a siesta.

And so it was that we woke up at 9pm and starving. We asked the kid (he was at most 18) at the hostel desk if he had any recommendations and he, with an enthusiasm most cheerleaders would envy, suggested a restaurant near the "big mushroom/waffle thing."

It turned out that this was actually not his suggestion, but one of the top-rated restaurants in the Lonely Planet guidebook to Sevilla and was therefore absolutely packed with tourists. I went up to the waiter and asked how long it would be before we could get a table. There were just the two of us, and hell, we could eat at the bar if there wasn't a table. The waiter said, 'a while' and that I could put my name on the list. In part because we were tired and too lazy to find another place to go, we put a name on the list (why did I think "Meg" would be easier for a Spaniard than "Meghan?" It's not) and went and sat on a little railing/wall thing in the plaza across the street where another group of tourists was waiting.

We sat for a while and after twenty minutes or so hit the point of no return. We had waited this long, we were committed. Not long after hitting the point of commitment, a couple American men came over to ask how long we had been waiting for. We got to talking, and learned some interesting things. First, that our restaurant was in the Lonely Planet book, and second that our new acquaintances were from Gresham and Cascade Locks. One was a finance director (or some kind of city govt. person) of Gresham, and the other worked for a company making and selling and using carbon fiber windsurf parts, and that they were in Europe in part to go windsurfing. 

We ended up getting a table together and talked about Spain and watersports and the Pacific Northwest. One of the guys had an odd, creepy vibe that for a moment put me in mind of a certain acquaintance from freshman year (anyone else remember Jeremy?) and he seemed to have an eating disorder of some kind and left to go to the bathroom half a dozen times. 

It was a nice enough dinner (hake for me, chicken for Heather and ox for the windsurfer), reminiscing about the Gorge and the Eastwind Drive-in, even if Jeremy (that was not his name) pissed off the waiter by shouting terrible spanglish at him. 

Back at the hostel again we made a game plan for our next couple days in Sevilla: see the cathedral, the General Archive of the Indies, the Maria Luisa park and the Plaza de España, a photo exibit in an art deco pavilion, the bull ring museum and a scenic path along the banks of the Guadalquivir.

Grand Tour Part IV: Astronaut

View from the hostel window

From Gijón, we started our journey south towards Sevilla, stopping for a day in Salamanca. 

Salamanca, for those who don't know it, is famous for two things in particular: Being home to not one, but two cathedrals (normally a city is only allowed to have one cathedral), and being the number one destination for study abroad students. Between that and having a charming, sepia-colored old town, it has a healthy tourist population. 

Our hostel was actually right in the center of the old town, within shouting distance of the cathedrals and after putting together our beds and having another picnic lunch of ham sandwiches we went to go check them out. 

Since the cathedral(s) is(are) in the center of the old town, it's actually really difficult to get a photo that shows what the thing looks like as a whole, and not just artsy bits and pieces, so above is a picture of the scale model to give you a better idea of what it looks like. The new cathedral, which was completed in the 1700s is in the late Gothic/early Renaissance style and is deceptively big, hidden as it is between buildings and narrow pedestrian streets. The two cathedrals are built essentially one on top of the other, so that the old one is not so much a separate entity, but more like a parasitic twin. (photo of the old cathedral)

The details on the outside of the new cathedral are very impressive, having been redone within the last ten years (around 2007, I think) and make me wonder how long all that detail lasts, since on other churches, the artwork often seems rough. This could be due to modern tools, but I bet time and the elements play a part as well. The artist even showed some humor and added in an astronaut alongside the depictions of saints and biblical symbols. 

Besides the various museums (one art deco museum, one of religious art, and one with an exposition on children's depictions of war and another on the freemasons) we checked out the famous plaza mayor of Salamanca, which is treated like the living room of all the study abroad students.

See the students sitting on the ground?

And then we came back at nighttime, which was much more impressive.

It was at some point around then when Heather officially became enamored with clara con limon, which is the fanta-beer mix that I'm sure I've mentioned before. And with justification because it is delicious. If anyone back in North America wants to try it the recipe is: part light beer, part lemon soda.

The next day after getting breakfast at the hostel cafe and doing a little more poking around the old town of Salamanca, we trekked back to the bus station and embarked on the awfulest bus ride ever to Sevilla, almost dreading our arrival after seeing a high of 94ºf on the forecast.