On Food and Eating

This is kind of silly, but the idea occurred to me and I figured it's better than nothing.

Since arriving in Spain, I have...

• gotten used to eating breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 3 and dinner at 10.
• discovered I don't actually like fish. Like at all.
• remembered, every day, how much I love breakfast. (Doesn't matter what it is. Waking up and eating immediately was just someone's best idea ever.)
• starting liking muesli and granola and dried fruit a lot.
• started missing foods I didn't even used to like that much, like pancakes and potato chips.
  
• eaten more yogurt than ever in my life. Only the kind with fruit. Delicious!
• eaten more, in general, than ever, because I have to eat everything our host mom serves, and it's 2 courses plus fruit and bread.
• eaten at least 2 fruits every day. That's amazing for me. (Generally: pears, kiwi, apples, and tangerines.)
• missed spicy and any kind of ethnic food.
• and, somewhat embarrassingly, Dunkin' Donuts.
• stopped drinking milk, unfortunately (for no good reason)... but still, the yogurt!
• gotten used to French bread at every meal, which could be a problem when I go back.
• not had to tip at restaurants much or at all (in Spain), which is fantastic.
• eaten too many napolitanas (chocolate-filled croissants).
• become a social coffee drinker.
• been a big fan of Döner Kebab.
• learned, at least somewhat, the wonders of eating from supermarkets while traveling.
• remained entirely incompetent at cooking.
• gained 15 pounds. Looks like the Freshman Fifteen came late. Aah!

My "Job"

So I've been neglecting this big-time, and have a lot to say, but I thought I'd post quickly about the job I got here a couple of weeks ago.

I wanted to make some extra money on the side, so I talked to Christine, one of the directors of my program... the mother of this family (my employer, basically) is a friend of hers.

My "job" is to play with these kids, three times a week, entirely in English. I'm still unsure about their ages, because the kids and parents told me different numbers and I don't remember them well, but they are: Gabriel (5 or 6), Cecilia (3), and Isabel (2). And they're all ADORABLE. The older two go to school and wear cute uniforms and the little one always has on cute dress-sweater sets and they all have matching shoes and accessories... I can't even handle it.

I divide my time between playing with just Gabriel, who knows more English and actually speaks it with me, and with the girls, who understand most of what I say to them (I think) but still respond in Spanish. Gabriel has been on an astronaut-aliens kick lately, so we've been role-playing nonstop. The girls like play-acting as well (wolf-and-little-girls is a favorite), generally anything that's very noisy.

Gabriel is one of the most creative kids I've ever seen (though, to be fair, I don't know that many little kids). We started this space project last week, just drawing with markers and crayons, and now it's a full set of cardboard action figures and all kinds of props improvised from paper, toys and wardrobe items. We have a space station, two rockets, headsets, remote controls, computers, a microscope, a believable space suit, and a large crew. Gabriel is Gabriel, principal astronaut, and I supply the voices of Houston (headquarters), as well as Jean-Jacques (from the French station), and Tony (Italian), whom we need to call sometimes for advice and urgent help.

Sometimes I forget we're not actually in space.

It's not really babysitting, because two Brazilian women (one live-in nanny, and one who I think cooks and irons), who are both super-nice, are always there to take care of the child(ren) I'm not watching, and that's just one of the things that makes it easy. The kids have tons of toys and art supplies and books and costumes, it's crazy. The girls are somewhat spoiled and sometimes unruly, but overall they are incredibly sweet and it's a great well-paying job. Knock on wood.

Classes

OK, yeah, I still go to school.

The Hamilton Center is a 25- to 40-minute trip from our apartment, including the metro ride and walking to/from stops. It's very near a bunch of other schools; there are always lots of students of varying ages walking around. My schedule doesn't match exactly with my roommate's, so I usually ride alone. On the metro I've been reading and/or eavesdropping on other people's conversations (good for learning Spanish!).

The center itself is, in a word, comfortable. On the first floor are the directors' offices, the teachers' lounge, and a computer room; the second floor has the (modest one-room) library and classrooms; and the basement is basically a student lounge with more computers and tables/couches. Those make up the spaces I'm aware of daily, anyway.

Classes in general are pretty different from those at Colby, but I'm pretty sure they're also different from typical ones in Spain. My class sizes range from around 12-30 students -- typical-ish for Colby, small for Spain -- and there's never any discussion: solid lecturing, from start to finish. (They're all twice a week and 1.5 hours each, which is a little longer than I'm used to.) But we are, of course, all Americans, and still act the way we think we're supposed to. It's normal for Spanish students, on the other hand, to talk, copy, and text straight through classes, and nobody thinks anything of it. Or so I hear.

Oh, and no classes on Fridays (specific to our program, not to Spain). Good deal.

In particular:

(I like all my classes a lot, so I'm going to save myself the trouble of saying so in each part.)

1) Cervantes' Don Quijote. Not hard to figure out what we do in this class. Sometimes it's a little difficult to sit through (9 am both days) but for the most part it's tolerable. Eugenio, the professor, incorporates a lot of European literary history and philosophy, which I only got a little of in high school. He also gives everyone in the class weird nicknames, or just other regular names that happen not to be theirs.

2) Spain and the Process of European Unity. This is history, starting from after WWII leading up until today. I just took Intro to International Relations last semester, so it's interesting hearing about some of the same things in a different language/context. Tomás is a good and fairly organized lecturer, and, like all of them, is really into his subject.

3) Subjectivity and Identity in Spanish Poetry in the 20th Century. Pretty much everyone has been enamored of this class, and professor, from the beginning. I didn't want to take it initially (schedule conflicts mandated), but I'm glad I am. It's almost more philosophy than poetry, and we're practically spoon-fed daily epiphanies.

4) Advanced Grammar. Pretty standard, a more nit-picky look at all things grammar. I took a class like this at Colby, but here it's different still; in class we learn a lot more colloquial words and phrases, and maybe go somewhat more in-depth.

To reiterate, I think the best thing about these classes is that the professors are so in love with their own subjects. I'm sure that's the case everywhere, but maybe here it just shows more.

The workload isn't bad so far; other than reading Don Quijote, I generally don't have too much to do outside of class. None of the real stuff -- papers and tests -- has started yet though, so we'll see.

A Week in Madrid + Toledo

First, a tragedy: I think my camera's broken.

Yeah. Moving on.

I said I would post about classes, but a lot happened last week so I'll write those down before I forget.

Last Sunday, Joslyn and I went to a little café in our neighborhood to do homework. Nothing exciting, but it's a nice place, and we went back yesterday evening: I won't be surprised if it turns into tradition. :)

My friend Margit (from Colby) has been here for Jan Plan and so I got to see her a bunch of times, which was fantastic. She spent last spring (with Hamilton, like me) as well as the summer here in Madrid, so she filled me in and showed me around, etc. I'd met up with her the week before as well, but lastWednesday, we went to a scrumptious chocolatería called Cacao Sampaka; Friday, we had lunch with her boyfriend, Chema, and his British roommate, Yoni, and then walked around a ton after more dessert. (Desserts here are AMAZING.) It was all really great; I'm glad I got to see her.

One of the classes offered at Hamilton is Contemporary Spanish Theatre; I really wanted to take it, but it coincides with my E.U. class so I can't. Every so often the class goes to real productions in Madrid, and for the first one Luis (director) bought a few extra for the first few students who asked. :) So I got to go. The genre of the piece was Zarzuela, a type of Spanish musical, and the show itself was called "El dúo de la Africana." We didn't really understand any of it. But that's ok! Paco (director) took the whole group out for drinks afterwards and afterwards I went to dinner with Will, Elizabeth and Marie at Vips (a Mexico-based chain, ha).

Wednesday (after the chocolate place) we went out again because the twins (Elizabeth and Marie) were going to Paris for the weekend and wanted to do something before they left. We found a nice bar whose name I don't remember, and it was fun. The downside of all this though: it makes all our clothes smell like smoke, yuck.

(For Mamu: I'm not actually drinking. :) Jeez!)

On Thursday was a big celebration for the Chinese New Year, and Joslyn helpfully planned an outing for a bunch of people. After a half-fiasco at the Chinese restaurant -- they had to open early for us; and we all had to order through Tiffany, the only girl who spoke Chinese; and one of the soups was almost too spicy to touch -- we got to the stadium, which is really near our house. The event was interesting... at least the parts with song and dance in costumes. Most of the rest was in Chinese, so nothing much to say there, but I liked at least being in a huge place with a ton of people. Is that weird?

Saturday, we (Joslyn, Will and I) took a day trip to Toledo, a small town nearby. We took the superfast train (25 minutes) which was, not gonna lie, one of my favorite parts. So smoooth and fast. Haha. Anyway, the pueblo itself was really great. Lots of old buildings, cobblestone streets, stores and cafés, etc. I have no pictures though (see above). We got to see three museums for free: the Museums of Santa Cruz, of Visigoth Culture and the Synagogue El Tránsito. Definitely worth the 15€ round-trip train fare.

Hokay that's it. Classes NEXT time.

Orientation Trip: Andalucía

Hola todos. I've been back in Madrid since last Sunday night, but wanted to post about the trip. The whole thing was a good idea -- we got to see a ton in Spain, almost free (or rather, pre-paid); and it was helpful to get to know everyone else (all the new students, plus the ones left over from last semester, who're staying for the year).

By the way, I went the whole 9 days without internet. It wasn't too hard because we were so busy and it was only limitedly available, but still! I'm proud of myself.

*'s mark all the pictures.

First, we went to Córdoba, about four hours from Madrid. (We had a bus, driver, and tour guide to ourselves.) I liked this city a lot, but can't really explain why. It's pretty small, and it was fun to walk around in. Joslyn and I stopped in a cafe for chocolate-con-churros, and had a nice conversation with the lady who worked there. She was really friendly and conversational, which is always the best. Later, some Americans from Kentucky came in and could barely order, they spoke so little Spanish. Something for us to feel triumphant about. :)

Of course, we then went to the Mezquita Catedral*, which is an old mosque with a cathedral (built later) inside. It was a pretty interesting/strange sight.

Our next stop was Sevilla. We walked a lot. This post isn't going to have a lot of details, partly because there are so many of them, but mostly because I can't remember half of them. Lots of walking tours, etc. I do remember, though, that we went to the Plaza de España*, which is one of the locations they used to film Star Wars: Episode II, haha.

On the way to Ronda we stopped at a place called Arcos de la Frontera, which is a little pueblo high up so that we had to climb a bunch of stone stairs to get there. But it was worth it -- the view* was awesome, and the town itself was endearing.

I don't have much to say about Ronda, except that it was a collective favorite and it had, by far, the best hotel of the ones we stayed at during the trip. As usual, we walked around a lot; I bought a bag and we probably stopped for coffee or ho cho or something.

Oh, one thing that made the trip infinitely more fun: our director, Luis, brought along his family for the trip -- his wife and, more importantly, two sons, who're 4 and 6 years old. They're two of the most outgoing little kids I've ever met, and it was great having them there/being ecstatic when they'd stand still to talk to you for more than two minutes.

Then Granada. We saw the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabel, which was pretty cool, considering they both expelled the Moors from Granada and sent Cristopher Columbus off on his little trip in the year 1492. We went up and saw a view of the Alhambra that, supposedly, Bill Clinton called the most beautiful he'd ever seen in his life. And then, of course, we went to the place itself. And everything that comes with it: the gardens of Generalife, the forts that go around, the unfinished palace of Carlos V (nearby), and the mosque. Everything was stunning. Other kinds of architecture can't really compare.

Finally, our last stop: Nerja, where we stayed put for a few days to chill by the beach and have our classes. Our hotel was so close to the sea that you couldn't even see the beach out the window; it just looked out on water. All the other residents (really, all) were old British couples on holiday, which was funny and a little comforting.

Re: the classes -- we had them for three days, four each day: Language, Conversation, Civilization, and Flamenco. They weren't bad at all; the teachers (two of whom teach here) were all good and the classes pretty interesting. It took me the first two days to get the hang of the Sevillana (the dance we learned in Flamenco) but by the third it was fun and we danced more at our celebration dinner. :)

And, of course, FOOD. I think I'll probably spend the most money in Spain on chocolate-con-churros, really thick hot chocolate with... churros, sweet fried bread. On the trip we had at least one group meal each day, and they were usually huge and pretty good. For the meals we had free, we ate a lot of tapas, which vary, of course, by type and restaurant. One day, though, we went to a Döner Kebap (kababs with bread and french fries) place, and I'm obsessed. Fortunately, there are lots of them in Madrid.

Here are the rest of my photos, if you're interested:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003084&l=15d04&id=1310460117
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003086&l=4d3a9&id=1310460117
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003087&l=1b866&id=1310460117

Ahh ok I'm done. For next time, classes.

Snow!

It snowed here this morning. That's rare enough in Madrid, but it apparently it hasn't snowed like this in 40 years! Earlier we saw some people -- grown men included -- tossing snowballs in the street; everyone's in awe. Pretty cool. We'll decide it's a good sign.

For a more detailed, boring narrative:

We arrived yesterday morning, Madrid time, all exhausted. (My flight was long but I sat next to some nice chatty Españoles from Toledo.) We had pretty much all day to chill with our host [families] and explore our neighborhoods. My "roommate" Joslyn -- we have our own rooms -- and I only have one host-person, una señora named Pilar. They're both very nice, the apartment is roomy, the food's great, etc.

This morning at the Hamilton Center there was more time to get to know other people in the program, along with a bunch of general info sessions by the family of directors (who are all awesome). Later, some of us went shopping in Sol; I bought a converter to finally use my computer (yesss).

We all look like tourists, big-time. Oh well.

The transition to speaking Spanish all the time is a little rough, mostly because it just leaves both ends of the conversation feeling incompetent. That'll get better, at least somewhat (I hope).

Tomorrow, we leave for a week-long orientation traveling through the south. So far, so good!

Bienvenidos.

I leave tomorrow! Crazy.

We'll see how diligent I can be with this. Comments are motivating :)