Come with me to the fútbol game. You'll like it.

Picture by Seracat

Last night was Spain's Super Bowl.

Spaniards feel the way about soccer that Americans do about chicken: it's good for you, easily available, and universally liked. So, when the two biggest Spanish teams get together and play, it's kind of a big deal.  This year, it also happened that the two are ranked 1 and 2 in the league, they each have a star player that is emblematic of the whole team, and they are both really, really good.

Barcelona versus Madrid. The Spanish press dubbed the game El Clásico, and it was destined to be one for the ages, or so they said.

Come with me to watch, won't you? You shouldn't miss this experience.

The first thing you notice is that the small pub you are in is humming with anticipation. It's packed, and there's only standing room, because you got there 2 minutes after kickoff and apparently Spaniards can be on time for something, given a strong enough incentive. You are about to get a master's education in Spanish profanity.  When the other team misbehaves by throwing elbows or punches, which they do with alarming frequency,  the old men around you in the bar question the marital status of each player's parents and the general level of morality of his mother.


Quickly, it becomes apparent that you are standing on the wrong side of the bar - you are standing with the Madrid fans, who apparently keep separate company from the Barca fans, where you belong. No matter, because after the first few minutes it is obvious that Barca is taking the tar out of Madrid. Shots of Cristiano Ronaldo looking distressed keep appearing on the screen, prompting jeers from the viewing crowd. "At least he's handsome, since he's mierda at soccer", they snicker. You are listening, since this is your only commentary - you have given up on trying to follow the television announcer within minutes.  His Spanish is ultra-fast and undulating, and the pitch and speed directly correlates with the relative excitement of the game. At the end, when Barcelona scores the fifth and final goal in a 5-0 shutout, you think that he must almost be passing out from excitement and lack of oxygen.


A 5-0 shutout is hardly the makings of a classic game, but you are not disappointed, because the good guys won. You put on your coat with the rest of the crowd and head out into the pouring rain, satisfied that you at least will not forget this one anytime soon.

Thanksgiving, Spanish-style

Foggy windows and wet hair for the big storm. 

Yes, siree, I had some Thanksgiving turkey this year.

We had to brave quasi-hurricane conditions, and got soaking wet in the process, but it was totally worth it.

As I mentioned, my friend Claire volunteered to host a big dinner - she roasted a turkey and even made green bean casserole from scratch. This being Spain, I must confess that there was also a fair amount of sangria in the house. We were about half and half Americans and Spaniards, and most spoke a good amount of both languages, so the conversation twisted and rolled in Spanish and English, sometimes even in the same sentence.

After the last piece of stuffing had been eaten, we broke out the cards and played a few boisterous rounds, learning the names in Spanish for suits of a card deck in the process. So, you see, it was educational too.

Here are a few pictures. There would be more if I didn't have such camera-shy friends (all who attended except Nandi, I'm looking at you).

"Hola, dahhling, can you believe there will also be macaroni and cheese?!"

Our hostess Claire, doing last minute checks.  

Why is stuffing called "stuffing" when it should be called "sweet manna of the gods"?

COME TO MAMA.

"Did you just see Sarah KISS her stuffing?!"

Our Thanksgiving dinner is a little different

This was our Thanksgiving dinner

The thing about spending Thanksgiving out of the United States is that it isn't Thanksgiving anywhere else.

So since you know you're not going to celebrate the typical way, you kind of just keep your head down and convince yourself to treat it like any other day, instead of spending the whole day wishing that you were in your parent's kitchen, sneaking bites of your mom's world-famous pumpkin cheesecake.

But the catch is that Thanksgiving is a rather famous American specialty, an infamous little quirk, and everyone has been exposed to it through movies and TV, and so the very year that you don't want to talk about it and you want to try to ignore the whole thing, everybody and their mother wants you to give them a five-minute monologue on it.

"How exactly do you cook the turkey? Roasted? Grilled? Fried?"

"Tell me about pumpkin pie. What's in it? Is it as disgusting as it sounds?"

(*side note here*: when I mentioned pumpkin pie to my third-graders, they immediately started making revolted faces and fake retching in the aisles.  One kid said "Necesito vomitar" which, I think, doesn't need translation.  They eat pumpkin here occasionally, but only in savory items, and the idea of sweet pumpkin nearly pushed them over the edge. Sad.)

Thanksgiving is, in fact, my very favorite holiday of the year, despite my attempts to ignore this one.

So here's to you, America. Happy Thanksgiving. Believe me when I say that I'm thinking about you.

(oh, and don't feel too sad for me - my friend Claire came through like a champ and is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner Saturday night for us wayward Americans - so looks like I will get to be jealous of your turkey and eat mine too!)

Oh, and this fishing boat probably brought in my lunch the other day

Today we forgot about siesta.

In the first time in a long time, The Mister and I, rookies that we are, attempted to run a few errands between the hours of 2 and 5.

Of course, that got shut down right away.

So instead, we walked to the beach, and found some swings on a wooden swingset that's a little creaky with the salt water. We swung, and looked at the clouds floating overhead, and guessed what they looked like.  I definitely saw a werewolf howling at the moon, but The Mister heard that and just started cracking Twilight jokes. Punk.

It occurred to us that yesterday marked the completion of our first two months in Málaga. What a wacky, wild ride it's been so far.

And, as always, more to come!

I used to go fishing with my grandpa, too

El Tintero

I hope you had a fine weekend. We certainly did. Flamenco show, coffees with Spanish friends, late-night Dominoes pizza. 

*cough*

Yeah sorry, one thing doesn't belong, right? But they just opened up a Dominoes in town, and there are LIMITED TIME OFFERS, well, we folded like lawn chairs. What else can I say?

So, Sunday we set out to atone for our sins.  We kept hearing about this great restaurant in the next little town, El Palo.  This restaurant, El Tintero, is famous for some of the best seafood on the coast. 

It was a bright, sunshiny Sunday, and so we set out on foot.  Google Maps estimated one hour walking time, which is a fairly standard walk for us here now, and didn't bother us in the least.  Right on the boardwalk the whole way.

One hour and forty five minutes later, we were there. Thanks, Google.

This restaurant is super cool because you don't order from a menu - instead, waiters wander around with plates of food, calling out items like at an auction - "arroz! arroz! pulpo a la gallega!", and you flag down the dishes you want.  When you've had your fill, they count how many plates you've had and you pay up.  Rather charming, and oozing with character.

As for the food - well I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Salt-encrusted shrimp - heads still attached, as is standard Euro-style

Paella, apple of my eye

My favorite one of the day: pulpo frito - fried octopus

Lobster so fresh I swear there was a little seawater on the plate

The pitchers of beer made the two-hour walk home feel a little shorter

I saw it in English with Spanish subtitles, which was like a bonus track

Busy day.

Busy, busy, busy.

Had coffee with a new Spanish friend. Got my official Spanish residence and ID card. Made pals with the Moroccan guys at The Mister and I's new shewarma restaurant.

And....

DUN DUN DUN

...saw Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte.

It. Was. Awesome.

In which I observe impressive self-government

  
    
Today I saw a stabbing, a criminal trial, and a perpetrator brought to justice.

Never fear, I was safe the whole time.

Here's what went down:

I'm in class - second grade - minding my own, when the teacher gets a cell phone call.  She takes the call, mid-sentence, and walks out of the room without a backward glance. Nice.

So there I am, Daniel in the lion's den.  Me and thirty 8 year olds.  I walk around the class, biding time until the teacher gets back. They don't really have any work to do, so they are bored, and the classroom starts buzzing.

All of a sudden, behind me to the left, a screech. I whip around, zeroing in on the source - one outraged boy holding his arm like it's in a sling, another glaring at him with calculating eyes.  A crime!

Pandemonium breaks out. SOMEONE just got STABBED in the ARM WITH A FREAKIN' PENCIL!!! they are all gasping.

One girl is well-dressed, pretty, and not a demure bone in her body. Her head flies up. "WHAT did he do???"  Clearly, we had just attracted the attention of the Alpha Female.

She flew to the injured party's side, using her powers benevolently. She examined the wound, eyes narrowed, lips pressed together tightly as if she were witnessing unspeakable atrocities. When she was done examining the (to other eyes) negligible scratch, she patted the victim comfortingly on the cheek.  Then, she whipped around to face her kingdom.

In a loud, clear voice she detailed the alleged crime to her subjects.  They swooped in, full of righteous indignation and questions.  Did he stab you? Yes.  To the allegedly guilty party: Did you stab him? Well, yes.

The class pronounced the defendant guilty as charged.  He had a strong enough sense of self-preservation to look rather abashed.

Finally, Alpha Girl administered the punishment. She grabbed his whole chubby face in one delicate little hand, tilting his jaw and squishing it, and began to loudly denounce his sense of moral right and wrong.

Obviously, this is where I intervened.

Some of you are undoubtedly wondering why I didn't before.  But a.) they were kind of handling it, in their own way, and b.) are you kidding? that was interesting. It was sort of like Lord of the Flies meets the Little Rascals.

No way was I passing that up.

The Mister loses 100 points

While I'm working on some other writing projects, The Mister has taken the reins today. Enjoy.


While sitting in my usual spot in the corner of the room at the teacher's desk the other day (while the actual English teacher proceeded with the lesson and did his best to forget that I was there), the two students sitting at the two desks opposite me asked me if I knew any jokes.  Apparently they were as bored as I was.

As it turned out, I had just heard a "real" Spanish joke on a Spanish-teaching podcast that I listen to.  So, puffed up with my recently acquired cultural savvy, I replied that indeed, I did know a joke.  Their eyes lit up and one of them yelled "cuenta!" (do tell!) so loudly that the English teacher interrupted his monologue and looked in our direction.  I gently reminded the student that this is a classroom and is no place for that sort of behavior, waited until the English teacher went back to his monologue, and then proceeded with telling my joke.  (As The Missus will confirm, I can't resist the opportunity to try and be funny, however doomed it is.)

The joke precedes as such:

Hay dos peces en el mar.
There are two fish in the sea.

Un pez dice al otro pez, "Que hace tu padre?"
One fish says to the other, "What does your father do?"

El otro pez dice, "Nada."
The other fish says, "Nothing/He swims."


The "funny" part of the joke comes from the double-meaning of the word "nada".  It can mean "nothing" or "he swims" in Spanish (from the verb nadar, for those who care).

I knew I wasn't bringing the house down like I'd hoped when the two students stared at me blankly for a few seconds upon my finishing.  I was afraid they weren't going to get it, and then I was a little excited at the prospect of having to explain the joke, being in teacher mode and all.  But then everything changed.

Their little noses both started to crinkle at the same time, and then came the boos.  Loud boos.

Loud enough that the English teacher started throwing quizzical looks in our direction.  I frantically tried to get them to hush, so they decided to express their disappointment through other means.  One student quickly drew a stick figure with my name and an arrow pointing to it, and the words "-100 puntos".  He held it up for me to see and loudly proclaimed in Spanglish, "YOU" (pointing at me then at the stick figure), "MENOS ONE HUNDRED PUNTOS".

I sat there, thoroughly chagrined, but not too chagrined to be sassy. "You mean minus one hundred points".

To which he vigorously nodded his head.

And I went back to being bored.

A ukelele would also suffice, I think

Today I:

Listened to Beethoven's Ninth full blast. And daydreamed that I could play the harmonica, so I could say "sorry, what were you saying? I was busy playing Beethoven's Ninth on my harmonica."

Had a kid in my class display a t-shirt that said "LOST: Sister and Dog. Reward for Dog".

I explained to my Spanish coworker that in America, unlike in England, we don't generally refer to erasers as "rubbers".  Ahem.

I received several drawings as gifts from students - drawings that I am one hundred percent positive were drawn while I was standing at the front of the class actually trying to teach them something.

Ran, with another woman, a 40-yard sprint to catch our bus. We had a good laugh about it together - after the bus driver, probably admiring our verve (or so I tell myself), stopped and let us on the bus.  We huffed and puffed together in the back seats.

Realized that even though I am becoming more and more comfortable in my Spanish world, that still it is impossible to coo at a baby in anything other than in English.  I held a coworker's two-month-old today, and what instinctively came out of my mouth was "que bonita youprettylittlesweetthingjustlookatthosedimplesandohmyLORDthoselittlethighs!"  I looked up into three sets of widened eyes - my coworkers.  To be perfectly honest, I think they forget that I speak English. I think they just think I'm slightly dimwitted.

I want to get in one of those boats and sail away

Yesterday The Mister and I took a little side trip to Nerja, a nearby pueblo an hour down the coast.

This is what it looked like from the Balcon de Europa (the Balcony of Europe) that extends over the sea.





We wandered around, took in the sights, and had some good Middle Eastern food at a little restaurant in the winding streets.

The day was sunny and beautiful.  An hour after we got home, it started raining, and rained for the rest of the night.

It was lovely.

There are feathers in my eggs

How do I know my food is fresh?

Sticks and leaves still attached to my mandarin oranges:





...and feathers in my egg cartons.





Have a good weekend!

The calculator in my head

Snapped this photo of an inch-less ruler (centimeters only) on my phone today at work. 

So. This shouldn't surprise you, but, you know, living abroad isn't all pretty vistas and late-night moto rides.  Adjusting to the rhythms of life in a different country is hard work at times - it's disorienting, and kind of exhausting. Especially if math isn't your thing. What?  Yeah, I said it. Math.

For whatever reason, Americans are kind of odd birds when it comes to standards of measurement.  We just operate on different systems than anywhere else.  Personally, I blame the Brits, who bequeathed it to us and then quietly switched over to the world standards, snickering behind their tea-stained fingers.  Their genteel revenge, if you will, for the whole Boston tea party incident.

Check it out.  Here are some mind puzzles that are all in an day's work:

• Celsius. Geez, we are really the only misfits in the world who use Fahrenheit apparently. Le sigh.  The conversion is near impossible for anyone with a sub-Einsteinian grasp of numbers (something about multiplying by 9/5ths?), so I have to learn the old-fashioned way: going out and taking a walk.  I don't know the conversion at all, but at this point I've learned the hard way that 28 degrees is too hot to wear a coat and I will end up carrying it all day, 19 degrees is lovely unless windy, and 11 degrees and raining is downright freezing.
• The Metric system. It's sort of similar to the one listed above, but it's a whole separate pain in the keister, so I'm listing it on its own.  Kilometers, litres, milligrams, schmillograms.  Oh, and you say you like to bake? Good luck trying to convert recipes!
• Euros. This one is the easiest of the bunch, but nonetheless it's different.  Conversions are more by feel than actual math, but the real problem is that the Europeans are really big on coins, and they have 1 and 2 euro coins as well as smatterings of littler ones.  I got 6 euros of change the other day, about 8 bucks worth, all in coins.  Ugh. Bottom line: double reinforce your pockets, because you get an extra couple pounds of metal to carry with you everywhere.
• 24-hour time clock. Meeting at 13:30.  Restaurants open for dinner at 20:30. Figure it out quick or you'll look a little slow.  What we call "military time" Europeans call "regular, standard, non-confusing time" and I suppose they are right, but still, a little different.
• A4. Oh, you made something on your computer that you're trying to print on a European printer? You and your cute little 8.5 x 11 inch paper.  Inches. So adorable.  You're either going to have a lot of white space, or you're going to have to do the metric conversion and use world standard (minus the US) A4-sized paper, which is a little longer.

I'm pretty sure I just heard a math teacher somewhere.

He said

MWAHAHA.

An Open Letter to Mom and Dad

Dear Mom,

You are a painter.

I wish I were a painter.

Because there are pretty things here in Spain.

So, how about you come visit me and you can get ideas and go back and paint me some pictures?

Okay?

Okay.

Miss you lots and love you always,

you favorite middle child



Dear Dad,

I have now taken to reading the morning paper on the bus. No electronic versions and link clinking, but the actual paper.

Sometimes, I fold it as loudly as possible and rattle it so that it lays just so.

I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?

Also: Please make Mom like olives before she gets here.

Love you,

me.

I would be well on my way to being European now if only I liked tuna in everything

Classic Europe

First off, welcome to anyone hopping over from travelblogs.com!  They featured my blog yesterday, (oh my gosh I always seem to leave off a letter when I'm hyperlinking - will you forgive me this once if I just leave it?).  On a side note, I like their use of the phrase "hatch a plan" in my blog description, and I think I am going to start slipping it into everyday conversation, i.e. "What are you up to at the moment?" "Oh me? I am hatching a plan to go to the grocery store."  It has a nice ring.

The Mister, I am happy to say, is much better, after I hatched a plan (see?) for him involving Tylenol, about 8 collective gallons of water, tea and 7-Up, and the fourth Harry Potter movie. He is now resting and hatching a plan (okay, I'm done) to use his sickness to soften me into watching The Matrix with him. Just between you and me, I see right through him.

I am also proud to announce that I have reached a milestone in this adventure called "living in Europe" - have crossed the invisible barrier, if you will.

*Drum roll please*

 I got my first ride on a moto last night.


Oh yes, I did.

I gave some private English classes to a family from my school, and afterwards the dad gave me a helmet and asked me if I minded getting a ride home on his Vespa.  I was jazzed. I did have to confess to him, rather embarrassingly, that it was my very first time on one, because I was a little worried that if I did not, I would sit down and wrap my arms around his waist and he would be shocked, thinking, "is this girl trying to HIT ON ME? Why isn't she USING THE HANDLES?" or something to that effect. So I thought that all things considered, it was better to confess my naivete and get a full tutorial than risk doing it wrong (in a possibly disastrous way), you know?

Oh, and the ride was everything I thought it would be. It was so Europe. Narrow cobblestone streets with the streetlights flying by, viewing the world through a Vespa helmet. Perfect.



Also a note: My button for Africa posts on the sidebar is now working.  Oops, didn't realize it had been broken.

Where's the ginger ale when you need it?

My favorite guy is sick.

101+ degree fever.

Be back tomorrow.

Have a good weekend!

Granada, Spain  |  Halloween 2010

If there were cones my odds would have been fifty-fifty

This is the shoe, after much vigorous sidewalk scraping. It's worse on the sides. 

So - you know how sometimes you are walking down the road, and you see paint lines on the street, and then you see footprints leading away from the paint? And you think - geez, what kind of idiot walks through wet paint?  

(*sheepishly raises hand*) 

Me.  I am that kind of idiot, apparently.

Today I was having on of those lucky days. Everything was going right.

I got paid for the first time, got my long-awaited health insurance card, got my schedule changed so that I now have Fridays off instead of Wednesdays (after a month of trying!), and found a cheap toaster oven in a little flea market shop, so I don't just have to eat soup and pasta for the next nine months.  It's a sunny, warm day in Málaga, and The Mister got off work an hour early, so we decided to meet for lunch in town.  I was walking to our meeting spot, blissed out over my good fortune, and thinking to myself "today is really your day, chica".

And then it happened.

The concrete turned slick under my feet. My foot slipped out from under me.  It was like I had stepped on jello, it was so slippery.  I barely caught myself from crashing to the sidewalk, and stumbled around for a  few steps like a crazed drunk, trying to regain my balance.

I had stepped right on a quarter-inch-thick coat of bright yellow street paint. 

There were no signs, no warnings, no cones.

Only construction workers taking a smoke break 20 yards away who couldn't help from guffawing a little bit.  To be honest, I didn't even blame them. "Sorry about your shoes" they offered, when it was clear that they were forever tainted by that annoyingly cheerful yellow paint.

"It's okay," I joked, "I didn't like the blue anyway."

And then I gathered the scraps of my dignity as best as I was able and I walked away.

Leaving a trail of bright yellow footprints in my wake.

Moral of the story: If you are walking along, thinking what a lucky day you have had so far, watch out for road hazards and stealthy wet paint. Karma will catch up with you at some point.

Córdoba in Photographs

In Córdoba, we 

hung out at La Mezquita, a three-for-the-price-of-one cathedral with Muslim, Catholic and Christian architectural influences:

Multiply this by eight hundred or so, and you'd get the feel for the joint.

If you look closely you can see a cobweb on the top of the lamp.  I like to think that it is a thousand-year-old cobweb.

Wandered windy little side streets.

Arabian Spanish windows

Visited the vacation home of Queen Isabela and King Ferdinand, the castle where they officially commissioned Christopher Columbus' voyage to the new world (cool), and which later served as headquarters for the Spanish Inquisition (not cool).

Ferdinand and Isabel to Columbus: "Hey dude, just find the Indies okay? We need more spices"
Columbus: "Suckers."

Cordoba, city of the Moors, from the castle turrets

Trying to see over the castle ramparts.  My conclusion: five foot two inch girls probably weren't high on the draft list for defensive positions.

I think this was try #3...The Mister keeps chastising me for not smiling, but his face is so close and kissable. Dangit.

Partners in crime, Becca and Bradley. Troublemakers, these ones.

Oh, and this is salmorejo, Córdoba's famous soup, which is really like a creamy gazpacho. Cold and garlicky, and garnished with ham and small bits of cheese.  Ummmm...more please.



There, now I just saved you a plane ticket, didn't I?

I hate waking up early, but this was totally worth it

Stars in the ceiling

On Saturday we woke up before the sunrise.  Granada, Spain. Ten degrees celsius. The streets were damp from a pre-dawn shower, and puddles flickered with the streetlights.

Why were we awake again? This was supposed to be vacation.

Ah, lack of planning. Right.  La Alhambra, the royal palace of the Moors, a finalist for the new Seven Wonders of the World, was rightly popular with visitors, and we hadn't gotten tickets in time.  We were forced to set the alarm, line up in the queue at opening time for the ticket office, and cross our fingers.

The walk to the ticket office is a little more than a mile, straight uphill, dark forests on both sides of the path.  The cobblestones are slippery and the road is steep, and The Mister and I look at each other like, we better get tickets for this thing because I can think of many, many other activities that would be more uplifting in this moment than falling and cracking my head on these cobblestones.

And then the path splits; up one hill to the left, up another one to the right.  Lost. No ticket office, and not a soul to be seen. It's getting closer to opening time, and we know the line for the few available tickets must be growing. Ugh.  Then, in the darkness, a few figures appear.  Four Spaniards, friendly even at this inhospitable hour. They respond kindly to our inquiries on the location of the ticket office, pointing us up another hill.  When it fails to appear there, we work our way around another bend, running into the same troop of four friends.  "It wasn't up there," we lament, "we aren't going to be able to get tickets."

"Oh!" they exclaim, "you need tickets? We have two extra tickets. We'll give them to you for sticker price. Come with us and get a coffee, our entry time is in 30 minutes." (This conversation has been abbreviated, it was really very chatty.  These are Spaniards, after all.)

And that is how we took a hike, got lost, avoided falling down cobblestone streets, scored tickets to the Alhambra, and made new Spanish friends, all before the sun even came up.



P.S.  As a side note, if you ever are lucky enough to get a chance to visit La Alhambra, it is my hearty recommendation to go right at opening time, when it's still dark, like we did.  The lights cast ethereal shadows on the carved walls, and lent a texture and air of timelessness to the structure.  And it's like a bonus that if you forget to reserve your tickets ahead of time and end up in the pre-dawn scramble, you can reassure yourself that you are really making the right decision, and that those who sleep in and visit at 10 a.m. are uncultured hacks. It really will make you feel better.

Granada, Córdoba, Home

Just got back home from our weekend travels.  Five quick things:

1. La Alhambra and La Mezquita lived up to the hype.  Stunning.
2. If ever in Cordoba, avoid ordering the flamenquin - essentially deep-fried log of pork - and then trying to swim, run or walk afterwards. It will weigh you down like a brick.
3. It is deep autumn in the Spanish countryside, and it is lovelier than I imagined.
4. A tea house is a good way to spend a rainy afternoon with friends.
5. A new place always starts to feel like a home for me the first time I go away for a few days and then come back.  Driving into Málaga, feeling the sunshine and the sea breezes after days of chilly rain - it all felt homey this time.

I took the photograph of Granada above early Saturday morning from the balconies of La Alhambra, proving once again that some things occasionally are better than sleep - very occasionally.

Back tomorrow with more pictures and stories.