Lessons Learned Late

Well, we're leaving Madrid in one week. I'm psyched about coming home, but it's hard to believe that it's already time to leave. I'm going to miss a lot of things: the city, people, my Spanish classes, Europe, the late eating schedule, and probably more that hasn't even hit me yet.

Yesterday we were looking for a place to fax our housing acceptance form for next year and we turned down a street in our neighborhood that had looked like it was just a bunch more apartments. Much to our surprise, we found a locutorio (internet and cheap international call center), another grocery store, two cheap general stores, and two beautiful fruit stands. Aarrghh. We've been buying everything from Carrefour (a French version of Wal-Mart) all semester because we thought that's all we have. Now we know we could have gotten everything from pots and pans to cleaning supplies and fresh fruits and vegetables of better quality at better prices. Not to mention supporting local economy instead of evil, exploitative French billionaires. Sigh.

We're all done with our Spanish class now. I wish I could take it every semester, it was great. I learned lots of Spanish, I just need to keep practicing now. Now it's time to frantically try to do everything we've put off and say goodbye to our favorite places and people as we pack and clean the apartment.

On the upside, Spain has been wonderful. I can't wait to see everyone at home. Love to you all.

For Mark Sorensen to decypher

Class schedule for next year

16A:152:001 United States in World Affairs

Time & Location: 11:00A - 1:20P M
The instructor: David Schoenbaum

Description:
A semester-length overview of how, where, when and why Americans have interacted with the world, with an eye to institutions, processes and decision-making; the past as prologue; and future challenges extending from international security, the globalized economy and the conundrums of the Middle East and China, to energy, the environment and public health. A series of guest lecturers, with experience in the White House, State and Defense Departments, Congress, the military, media, business, NGO’s and think tanks, will reflect on what they learned there. Readings will include basic documents, solid journalism and historical background. There will be a mid-term and a final exam.
This class is both a regular course offering and an ongoing public event. Presentations by distinguished visitors will be open to the public. The class will meet Mondays from 11:00 to 1:30 at the Englert Theater (221 East Washington) and the Iowa City Public Library, on a schedule still to be determined. Registered students will be notified via e-mail of the place of the first class meeting.

045:175:001 Revolution in American Culture

Instructor: Laura Rigal
Time & Location: 2:30P - 3:45P MW N221 LC

Beginning with the Revolutionary War, the recurrent possibility of revolution at home or abroad has been a source of both utopian hope and paranoid anxiety in the United States. By examining the emergence of revolutionary identities in the U.S., this course analyzes the paradox that revolutionary assaults on the social and economic order of the U.S. have often, although not always, worked to reaffirm that order. Students will confront this structural paradox, and will become alert to the recurrence of the binary of revolutionary hope versus counterrevolutionary paranoia in U.S. cultural forms. They will confront the religious roots of revolutionary acts and fantasies in the U.S., and the way in which the plot-line of the frontier (or the western) came to inherit the dynamics of revolution in America.

Readings, lectures, and discussion will be organized around specific sites of revolutionary actions, practices, and representations. These will include many but not all of the following: the American Revolution; the Whiskey Rebellion; the the Haitian (and later Cuban) Revolutions; Native American movements such as the Red Stick revolt and the Ghost Dance religion; slave revolts prior to the Civil War; the Mexican Revolution; the Mexican Revolution and responses to the Mexican-American War; the Old Left labor and populist movements of the late-nineteenth century, through the emergence of the New Left in the second half of the 20th century. Materials will include the Gothic novel Wieland, or The Transformation; the early American utopian fantasy Lithconia; Eric Foner’s Tom Paine and Revolutionary America;Joel Martin’s Sacred Revolt; James Mooney The Ghost Dance Religion; Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno and The Amistad; John Rollin Ridge’s Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murrieta and Viva Zapata (or The Fugitive); the autobiography of Emma Goldman, and films such as Reds and The Weather Underground. Course requirements include one short paper, a longer research paper, a midterm, and a final exam.

045:090:001 Seminar in American Cultural Studies: Diversity and American Identities

Instructor: Deborah E Whaley
Time & Location: 9:30A - 10:45A TTh E146 AJB

Description:
Diversity and American Identities will familiarize you with interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the history and culture(s) of America, concentrating in particular on citizenship, cultural identities, and social stratification. We will use cultural theory and criticism, cultural and social history, autobiography, literature, art, and documentary film to examine a variety of American identities. In particular, we will explore conflict and commonality among groups in the U.S. while focusing on the following variables: race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexualities. The course requires active discussion, 1 page bi-weekly response papers (You may also write or present a more experimental response to the required reading, for example you may write a poem, construct an original art work, short story, give an oral presentation, or do a short article or book report), a midterm exam, and a final research paper of 10-12 pages.

045:095 Honors Project

Instructor: Rob Latham

045:250:001 Seminar: Topics in American Studies

Instructor: Rob Latham
Time & Location: Time & Location: 6:00P - 8:30P M 216 EPB

Description:
This course will offer a solid grounding in cultural studies methods by means of an exploration of theories and practices of subcultures. Gelder & Thornton’s Subcultures Reader will provide the backbone for the class, as it covers major traditions within the field, ranging from the urban ethnography of the 1940s Chicago School, through the innovative fusion of marxist and semiotic approaches by the Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1960s and ‘70s, through more recent and eclectic interventions. Because it is what I know best, our primary materials will relate to youth subcultural movements, principally though not exclusively American, of the 1970s-1990s (punks, skinheads, goths, rappers, etc.). An abiding concern will be to see how youth subcultures, as popular generational forms of identification, intersect with other compelling markers of collective identity, especially race, class, gender, and sexuality. To this end, we will survey relevant texts from various media and genres, including fiction, sociology, film, music, and popular fashion, among others. Student work will include a series of short response papers, an in-class presentation on a selected topic, an annotated bibliography relating to an individualized research project, and a final paper. Although the course, as noted, will focus specifically on youth subcultures, I am open to projects that apply the theoretical perspectives we canvass to other subcultural movements, broadly construed.

Good eating

With Anne's new kitchen knife from Toledo (and our new relative poverty due to Iowa's never-ending wisdom) has come a wonderful excuse to entertain ourselves by cooking me delicious food. Anyone who said that the food is bad in Spain wasn't talking about my apartment. In the last week, we've eaten:

Monday
salad - spinach with Raspberry vinaigrette, strawberries, and oranges
mostacholi with homemade spaghetti sauce cooked for hours
garlic bread
homemade rice pudding

Tuesday
Anne made some biscuits and we had a snack of biscuits and tea.
Stir-fry with broccoli, sweet peas, and low-mien

Wednesday
We had some friends over to work on a project, so Anne got to make meat for them. We had a salad with spinach, raspberry vinaigrette, toasted almonds, Roquefort cheese, and oranges
They had pork chops with mushroom gravy, I spaghetti
Then we had chocolate-walnut brownies made from scratch for dessert

Thursday
Fajitas with red peppers, onions, zucchini, TVP, and cheese.

Friday
Anne created a noodle bake with spiral noodles, peas, and a creamy broth/sauce with vegetable broth and cheese. Then she baked it with bread crumbs and our sharp special Manchego cheese on top.

Saturday
Today we cooked together and made a delicious Middle-east style curry dinner. We started with a mild yoghurt-curry sauce from the store, but we added all kinds of spices and some tomato to it to make it more delicious. We put it over cooked potatoes, peas, and broccoli and also made Basmati rice. To top it off, we toasted some flour tortillas to make a flat bread and added some bananas, just like Ahmad's in Omaha.

Sunday
Today I got hungry for a snack, but Anne outdid herself making some of the best nachos I've ever had. She used the TVP and taco seasoning that my parents brought and added red peppers, red onion, tomato, and red beans to make a taco "meat" mix. Then she put the mix, refried beans, and more onion and cheese on the corn chips. Add salsa and enjoy. Mmmm


With that, I think I'll sign off and go get another serving. Stop in for dinner if you're in the neighborhood!

Things that sucked in the last month

1. My aunt Jackie died and I miss my family.

2. Iowa took $1000 from me this week because of scholarship confusion, and now we're broke. No big trips for the Workers' Holiday week off like everyone else.

3. We don't have the internet.

4. I got a rash on my whole body and I don't know why. Someone at a drug store told me to take these odd red pills and it went away.

5. I thought my purse was stolen, and I cancelled my only debit card and called to get the locks on the apartment changed. Someone returned it (thank you anonymous good Spaniard), but I had no money for several weeks.

6. I leave Spain in less than a month.

7. We finished the fourth season of Northern Exposure and we're out of episodes to watch.

And virtue shall triumph at last...

Spring Break

Sarah's family and I piled into a rented car and headed south for Andalucia.

La Mancha:

Despite a few setbacks, like running into a curb and getting a flat tire before the car even got to our apartment and getting lost every few miles, we had an awesome trip.

First, we stopped by a little town in La Mancha, humming, "I am I, Don Quijote..." to see a bunch 16th century windmills alongside a castle whose age

I can't remember. The scenery was beautiful and we walked through the castle, currently undergoing restoration.

I got pretty terrified towards the top, because I'm afraid of heights, but Sarah was brave enough to climb all over the battlements.

Granada and the Alhambra:

Katie, me, Sarah, and her mom in the Alhambra.

Overlooking a fountain in one of the gardens.

The Alhambra is probably one of my favorite things in Spain so far, though it's hard to compare night clubs and cities. It's a complex of buildings - a city, a palace, a mosque, bath houses, and lush gardens - that were the stronghold for the Muslims in Spain until I believe Carlos I took over and built his own palace on part of the site (what a stupid idea - it looked tacky in comparison). The walk through the Alhambra and Generalife was beautiful and inspiring. It was cold and rainy, but it didn't matter to me. We also visited the cathedral in Granada where Queen Isabella, who unified Spain under one government and sent Christopher Colombus off to India, are buried.

Cartejma:

The second night of our road trip, we stayed in a tiny town near Ronda called Cartejima. It sits in the mountains and has about 140 people. A hippy British guy runs a hostal bed and breakfast (El Refugio, the Refuge, if you're curious), which turned out to be one of the coolest places I've ever stayed. We had a great night, even if we woke up to the blaring horn music from the church at 7am for Good Friday.

As we drove into the city, a flock of sheep crossed our path, and we saw this baby lamb stumble after its mother and struggle to keep up with her. It was so adorable. Spring's here, I guess!

Cueva de las Pilas

We tried to visit a cave where a farmer discovered paintings over 10,000 years old. Unfortunately, it was full both times we tried to go there. Worse yet - we had to climb halfway up a mountain on a narrow, winding path with deathly drops just over the edge AND NO HAND RAILING to get there. I survived, barely. In this picture, Sarah and Katie are smiling and I am terrified.

Sevilla (Seville) and Holy Week:

We got to Sevilla just as preparations for the Good Friday procession were underway. Holy Week is a big deal in Spain, and the biggest processions take place in Sevilla. We learned that all of the Catholic churches in Sevilla dress in different colors, and begin the procession at their respective churches. They meet up when they go through the cathetdral. The costumes look like the klan, so it was definitely a culture shock moment to see them marching through the streets.

At the cathedral in Sevilla, we saw what are supposed to be the remains of Christopher Colombus. I also think it was the first time I've seen flying buttresses (that I've noticed). Very cool city. We didn't stay too long because we had to get out before the procession began or we wouldn't be able to leave until very late, and we had many more miles to cover before the end of the night.

Arcos de la Frontera

Our last hotel was in Arcos, and although we didn't spend much time there, Sarah's dad snapped this beautiful picture of the town.

Castle of Lunch:

As we headed back to Madrid, we noticed a castle alongside the road. It was marked with only one sign. We drove up to it and found it open. A few men were working on it, and there was a sign that talked about its origins and history, but there were no markers besides that. We were able to walk around it freely. It's not only amazing that so much of it was still standing but that this kind of thing could just be sitting there without being a major tourist attraction. I guess that's what happens when you have a lot of fourteenth century castles lying around.

After climbing three (or four, depending on how crazy the individual) stories into it, the five of us ate lunch in the middle of the open courtyard. Beautiful day.

Holy Toledo

This is us waiting in the train station in Madrid. Buying tickets isn't easy. It seems like I spent ten hours in line trying to get tickets to Toledo (only a 30-minute train ride), because by the time we got to the front of the line, the train would be full. We had to come back several times, but we finally got things together. The train station itself includes a jungle complete with a pond full of hundreds of mating turtles.
Toledo is a beautiful town on a hill surrounded on three sides by rivers. It was a fortress occupied at different points by pretty much everyone - Romans, Visigoths, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The complicated architecture and lore make it a fascinating city. The bridge was originally built by the Romans, destroyed in the 11th or 12th century in a flood, and rebuilt. We liked it so much that we came back, and we'll be visiting one more time before we leave since it is such a cheap and beautiful trip. There's a corny tram ride that goes through the city's narrow streets and tells stories about the buildings, weaving in bits of myth and poetry. My favorite part is when it says that Toledo has been a "harmonious crossroads of cultures" and then follows up with how "The church is built on the site of the mosque" and "This arch was built from the tombstones from the Muslim cemetary". My second favorite part is how it tells that the pelican was used in sacrifice symbolism because it is the only bird that will eat its own flesh to feed its young.

Partly because of its crusade history, it is also famous for its swords and knives. Sarah's dad found a knife and sword shop and bought a knife for carving violins. He was also nice enough to buy us a beautiful kitchen knife that I have been enjoying ever since. I've become a chopping addict though, and I'm finding ways to add vegetables to things I wouldn't have bothered with normally. Who thought that a knife from Toledo would be good for our health?

Differences in College Life

Colleges don't have dorms and students don't really go away to college, they usually live with parents or relatives and commute. College is also WAAY cheaper here. At the public law/economics/business university that houses our study abroad program, tuition is 700 euro (about $1000) a year. (We are paying upwards of $8000 for one semester here, grr!) Also, the job market in Spain is awful and most people live with their parents until they're at least 25, and staying at home until 30 is not at all uncommon. Since college is cheap, lots of people go, but even with an advanced degree as an architect or engineer, young college graduates may not make more than 1000 euros a month.

However, very few students work until they're finished with school. Our Spanish teacher said that she didn't get her first job until she was 22 or so. Spanish students spend a lot of time going out, and often stay out late at bars, but don't really hang out at home since not many have their own apartments.

Relationships are also very public, people are always making out on the metro or on the street. It would be gross in the U.S., but a girl told me that people will think something's weird if two people are dating but their friends never see them touching or making out with each other.

Drinking, of course, is much different. Spain does have a legal drinking age, 18, but I've never seen it enforced. Bars, clubs, and restaurants don't card. Wine is very cheap. It costs about 1 to 3 euro a bottle, and comes with lunch at the cafeteria at school. Even though drinking is commonplace, being drunk isn't cool or acceptable like it is in the U.S. People go out all night partying, but would just think you're an idiot of you drink so much that you lose control of yourself. It's certainly a change from U of Iowa.

Art Museums

Anne´s mom has been in Madrid with us for the last week or so visiting, so we´ve had fun going to all the cool stuff downtown. The last two days we went to the Prado and the Museo Reina Sofia, the two big art museums in Madrid. The Prado has older artworks and the Reina Sofia has more modern art, including Picasso´s Guernica and a lot of art by Salvador Dali. Here are some of our favorite pieces:

The Prado:

Cheeseburger from Paradise

It´s a little hard to tell in this reproduction, but this painting is actually one of the first examples of product placement. In the painting, St. Paul the hermit´s prayer is answered when a crow comes from heaven and delivers a cheeseburger to him. The miracle is much more dramatic in real life, though. I advise going to the Prado yourself.

Mythology:

My favorite paintings were a couple by Velazquez and Rubens that depicted different myths. I had fun because we had studied a bunch of the same paintings in my classical mythology class. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Watch out, Venus

In this painting, Apollo the messenger god arrives at Vulcan´s forge to tell Vulcan that his wife, Venus, has been messing around with Mars, the god of War. Vulcan decides to get even and forges a magical net that he uses to catch the two in the act and trap them.

The Judgement of Paris - Peter Paul Reubens

In this painting, Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera get in a fight over who is the most beautiful. They pick a man named Paris, give him a golden apple marked ¨beauty¨and tell him to give it to the most beautiful goddess. Of course, being goddesses, they also all bribe him. Athena offers Paris success in war if he chooses her, Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world, and Hera offers him greatness. Predictably, Paris chooses Aphrodite. Unfortunately, the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy, is already married. Aphrodite makes Helen fall in love with Paris, and the Trojan War begins.

The Reina Sofia - Guernica

The Reina Sofia was huge and we didn´t get to see nearly all of it before we were pooped. The pieces by Picasso and Dali were neat. Probably the most famous piece of art there is Guernica by Picasso:

Guernica is huge, it takes up a whole wall. The story behind it is that Hitler wanted to test out a new type of bomb, so Franco gave him permission to bomb a city in northern Spain (I think in the Basque country, but I´m not sure) without repercussions. Picasso was exiled to France at this point in time, and painted this painting. It was shown in the World´s Fair in France and then was on display in France, but has only recently been allowed into Spain.

The museum also had a series of photographs on display by Dora Maar that were taken in Picasso´s studio while he was painting Guernica. The photos show the progression of the work from sketches to its final form. These are especially interesting because the painting was a lot different in its earlier stages. For instance, the bull on the left was a whole figure and fairly normal looking. The hand at the bottom with the broken sword was part of an entire body that extended one fist up into the air, and the horse head in the middle was pointing down. The transformation as he added layers was really interesting.

Marbella explained

For those I haven't bragged to yet, here's a little more about Marbella:

My mom works for Marriott part time, which helps pay for our horse, but also has the awesome benefit of great discounts on Marriott hotels. This weekend, and last weekend, we went to Marbella, which is on the south coast of Spain and has a beach resort that we got to stay at for about a quarter of the normal price.

Madrid is on a plateau and even though it's warmer than the midwest, it's still only about 40-55 degrees this time of year. Marbella, however, is about 70 now and on the beach with palm trees and sun. It's very close to Gilbraltar and Morocco. We were thinking about going to Morocco, but we decided to have another lazy day on the beach instead.

All of the pictures under "pictures from Marbella" are of us at the resort, except for the one with the country side, which is a picture of the olive trees taken from the bus on the way down South.

The Food Post

If it seems like all we do is talk about food, it’s probably because it’s become our number one pastime. I’m going to devote an entire post to food so that it looks intentional. We cook almost every day – it’s inexpensive and fun. I’ve learned to make a whole lot of new dishes. Most have been good, and a few were terrible. Kaiyan requested more food posts, so we're justified in writing about it again!

Brownies again

Our dangerous brownie shortage inspired us to take action and try to make them from scratch. I (Anne) found a recipe online using baking chocolate, but tragically, our oven was too hot as usual and the outside quickly burned. Fortunately, my genius presented itself. I cut the brownies into a bunch of pieces according to how cooked they were, threw away the burned outside, and baked the soggy middle again. We assembled the pathetic pieces on a plate and covered everything with sauce made from the leftover chocolate bar. Before serving, we threw it in the oven for a few minutes and served it to our friends in pieces with chocolate ice cream. We told them it was ‘chocolate lava cake’. It was fantastic! No one guessed that they were really eating burned brownies.

Cookies

To celebrate Carnaval, Sarah and I decided to cook another thing we can’t find anywhere in Spain: chocolate chip cookies. We were really proud of ourselves for finding all of the ingredients, a few of which – baking soda and vanilla -- we could only get in specialty stores. Brown sugar was also a problem. Sarah cut up a chocolate bar to substitute for chocolate chips, and we were really excited. Then, they came out of the oven. I can’t begin to describe how horrible they tasted. The brown sugar here is completely different, and it’s not just an aesthetic difference like we had hoped. The vanilla is more of a syrup than anything. We were crestfallen.

But we’re optimistic again. Sugar cookies don’t call for brown sugar. Would anyone be willing to post a good recipe for soft sugar cookies?

Oh my darlin’

Clementines! Tropical fruits are abundant here, and clementines have risen in status to become my second favorite fruit (after strawberries). They’re like oranges, but adorable (about half the size) and a little sweeter. Every time I peel one and eat the mini wedges, I feel like I’m in kindergarten again and it’s time for snacks.


Wait, potato chips?

I never liked potato chips much, but they’re really good here because they’re made with olive oil. They're also about 500 calories a serving, but it's hard to figure out how big a serving is anyway, since I don't know what "25 grams" means. I figure the whole bag is most likely single serving size.

Pictures from Marbella

Ice Cream

Ice cream

Ice cream here is pretty expensive and of limited selection, but boy is it good. There's a lovely top dressing on it, so it's like eating a huge ice cream sundae.

Wow, Madrid is in the mountains

I looked out my bedroom window today, and saw snowy mountains on the horizon! I guess it's either been cloudy or else I've been sleeping through the daylight. Either way, there are mountains here, but it's still warmer than the midwest.

Coming soon: Madrid Fashion! Learn what's cutting edge, and what should have been left in the 80s.

Phantom Internets

Our most reliable stolen internet disappeared this weekend, and we were sadly wondering if our days of access from home were over. Gloriously, though, our wireless phantom has reappeared and we are online again! Sorry for the few days without any updates. Here's a short update about Thursday, I'll add more soon.

Thursday

On Thursday night we decided to go out to a bar where an international student group meets each week. We met up with the other girls from our group as planned. Unfortunately, the person in charge of leading us to the bar only had the bar name and street name to get us there. We wandered around for about an hour (in high heels and an outfit far too cold for the night) before most of the other girls gave up and decided to just go to a different bar. Anne and I took the address from them and persisted. We eventually found the place, although it took another half hour. It should have been about three blocks from where we started out, but we had been going in completely the wrong direction. We met up with the student group, but by then it was ten minutes before the bar closed. Not all is lost, though. Everyone was really nice and we're planning to go salsa dancing with them next Tuesday.

Funny culture shock moment -

When we met the other students, we were completely caught off guard when they went to kiss us on the cheeks when we were introduced. We've heard that people do that here, but hadn't really experienced it. We were all able to laugh at us silly americans and our strangely formal tradition of shaking hands, though.

Library Nazis and more pictures

Library Nazis

Some things are universal. Like bitchy librarians. In order to use the computers at the highly-secured computer lab, we have to show our identification cards to the powertrippy woman behind the counter. We're only allowed one hour a day on the internet. For some reason, she thinks that Sarah's stupid, so she is really rude and bitchy to her. The problem is that, like at the movie theater, you have to speak through a little microphone that doesn't work very well. Even though this woman has to repeat the numbers four times for Spanish students, she flips out whenever Sarah asks her to repeat and starts talking really loud. It reminded me of how Mexicans get treated this way a lot in the US.





Our campus. Exotic trees, weird statues of Cervantes, Spanish fashion, fight against SIDA (AIDS)


















The Canadian restaurant.

I am pleased to inform you

It's true. The baguettes at the Bread Oven are better than the widely available ones here (even if they are six times the price). And speaking of bread: today we finally figured out the Spanish word for chocolate croissants (an important part of a balanced Spanish diet) - napolitanas. I'd been getting pretty weird looks when I asked for "croissants con chocolate".

The $15 phone call

Sarah and I bought a prepaid phone yesterday without much difficulty, but had a really hard time reading the manual outlining the charges. Our apartment has no phone line at all, which is not, we hear, rare. Even local calls are expensive and charged by the minute. The rates on the cell phone varied widely - from a euro a minute during the day to nine or ten cents at night. I was excited to read that international calls from 8-12pm were only .18 a minute (about the same as our phone card), so I placed a call right away. After about ten minutes, it told me that my phone was out of money. It turns out that you have to designate your home country, and the USA isn't an option. Bummer. At least we only had 12 eur on the phone!

Terrorism in Spain

Terrorism is an even hotter topic here in Spain. I wrote before about the newpspapers' clear disgust for the war in Iraq. The recent ETA bombing and the protests that follow make the issue pretty relevant. A few days before we arrived in Madrid, there was a bombing at the airport that marked the end of the ceasefire treaty between the government of Spain and the basque seperatists. Coincidentally, the building that was bombed was at the terminal where we landed, and as we waited for our shuttle, we could see the clean-up operation. The bomb killed two people, leading me to believe that it was a fairly small incident. The wreckage was much greater. Our driver told us that there had been warning beforehand and that the area was evacuated. Two young men who were asleep in their car were the victims. The ruined area was huge, with mangled cars and concrete blocks everywhere. But everything was moving forward. The broken glass panels were replaced with boards. I was pretty impressed.

This weekend, we also saw the cameras set up for a huge anti-ETA march in downtown Madrid. I didn't catch much more than that, though.

Siesta

I think I've been a Spaniard all along, but just didn't realize it. The concept of a siesta is perfectly natural for us. I've heard before that a lot of shops close up for the siesta, but I didn't quite believe that it was still a big deal in modern Spain. But alas - during the afternon, almost every store closes to observe this extraordinary event. It's really weird to see every store closed up 0 even pharmacies. Sleeping is really awesome, and Sarah and I are catching on pretty quickly. The whole schedule is different here - after waking up fairly early and having a very light breakfast, we go to class, have a meal for lunch (which is normally the biggest meal of the day in Spain), and then go to sleep. The stores re-open around five, but we normally sleep until six or seven. Most people don't eat dinner until very late, and the night life doesn't really begin until 1 or 2am. We really dig the extra nap, though.

Some more updates

Walking Tour - Sarah's notes

Anne and I were in different groups walking around Madrid. Her group was totally lame compared to mine! For instance: they stopped and starbucks; we made fun of starbucks. It was a long walk, but it was a beautiful day and we stopped in the middle at a little coffee shop/restaurant. I had a tasty piece of almond torte/cake and some water. We went all over downtown Madrid, which is huge and metropolitan, but very clean and with a lot of great old buildings sprinkled in. We didn't bring the digital camera, but I imagine we'll get some pictures at some point. All the trendy shopping places have big sales right now - 50 to 70% off. There's some sort of national holiday where everyone has to have sales. I'm not exactly sure how that works, but I want to go shopping sometime.

Cooking

Being able to cook in a real kitchen is really nice. Well, usually Anne cooks and I do the dishes. But I did manage some scrambled eggs. We had some friends over after the tour and made eggs with cheese, hash browns, fresh pineapple, and fresh bread. It was a lot of fun.

School

School seems like it'll be just fine. We're both taking 12 hours, 9 in Spanish which will finish our Spanish minors. We don't have any classes on Fridays, and are done the rest of the time either at noon or at 3:30. The schedule's nice, hopefully it's not too hard. It doesn't seem like it will be. The campus is small, but nice. I guess we'll know more once we start classes Monday.

Our Apartment

Like Anne said, we're really happy with our apartment. It's furnished and even came with sheets, blankets, towels, cooking utensils, etc. The pictures don't really show it, but it has a lot of nice dark woodwork - shelves, doors, etc. It also has all wood floors and two bathrooms, although only one has a shower. We even have a washing machine, hooray! No dryer, though. Instead, there's a clothes line out the window of the laundry room. We're on the 15th floor of the apartment building, so we better hope they gave us good clothespins!

More pictures

Captions - figure it out!: Making silly faces for the camera; our personal kitchen; furnished living room; view from our bedroom

Touring the City

We have been in Madrid for three days now. Now that I've caught up on sleep, the city is new and exciting (rather than foreign and overwhelming).

The USAC orientation that has taken most of our free time (and energy) over the last few days is finally over. We finished today with a walking tour of the city with an intercambio (Spanish friend). The historic plazas and grand buildings started to blur together after awhile, and by the end of the three hours, I just wanted to eat and sleep. Central Madrid is fairly touristy, so most of the shops and restaurants were expensive and gimmicky. I am suprised by the saturation of American products and brands. The potato chips were made by Lays, the toothpaste by Colgate, etc. One of the things I like best about the city is the diversity of stores and restaurants (Spain has the largest number of bars and restaurants per capita than any country in the world), but one of the sorority girls in my group just HAD to go to Starbucks (despite the dozens of local cafes around the are). Except for the higher prices here, Starbucks sucks just as much in Spain as it does in the US. I wasn't really in the mood for a $5 hot chocolate.

Funny restaurants

1. Nebraska Restaurante - to my horror, downtown Madrid has no shortage of this chain. We passed four or five in our tour. I got my picture taken in front of this window to my home. The only thing about the menu that reminded me of Nebraska was its generall boringness - pasta, chicken, meat, salad.

2. Restaurante Canadense Iglu - Outside our apartment, there is a Canadian restaurant that we'll have to try someday. "Iglu" seems to be referring to igloos. I had to pass this on to a few Canadian friends of mine.

Our apartment

To our delight, the apartment is beautiful and much larger than we hoped for. It may take a while for the novelty of our big kitchen and living room to wear off. Today, we had a couple of friends over to eat eggs. Our room mates - Amanda and Sara (there are two Sarahs) are nice and funny. After encountering the abundance of drunk sorority girls that make up the study abroad program, I was thrilled to luck out.

Wireless internet is just catching on in Spain, and since we don't have a phone line in our apartment (even local calls are charged by the minute), luck was our only chance to get online. Fortunately, we're at the top of a 15-story apartment building, and we can access (steal) a few unsecured networks. There's one particular spot on the floor in my room where I can get a passable connection. The challenge is to sit absolutely still.

Twilight Zone moment: Tonight, as Sarah and I were returning from a trip to the bakery (our bread habit is outrageously enabled here), we both stared in each other in shock as we saw tha tour apartment door had a different lock. We checked to see that the floor and apartment numbers were right, and eerily returned to the bottom floor. Finally, we saw that the painting in the lobby was different. We were in the wrong building. Everything else looked the same. We felt really stupid.

Food

The food here is just wonderful. It's not so much that I love the Spanish fare (although I'm sure I'll get used to it), but that fresh food is more available in the grocery stores. Baguettes for .40 euro ($.53) is nothing out of the ordinary (compare to Jean's at the Bread Oven for $2.95). Wonderful cheeses are inexpensive and available even in convenience stores. I knew to be on the lookout for cerrano ham, but I couldn't have missed it - it's everywhere. I was really suprised by how good the ham is here. I've never liked it too much, but the sliced meat here is of a much, much higher quality and, like the other "gourmet" products, is cheap.

Instead of frozen pizzas, they have refrigerated ones that are much fresher and better. We also got something that looks like chocolate mousse for $.23. Soda is expensive, but a bottle of champagne was $2.00.

The only thing that is a little weird is the milk. Although I like the idea of milk that keeps for a few months and doesn't need to be refrigerated, I'm not quite used to it in practice.


Newspaper

The Spanish newspaper tries its best to be nonbiased, but it can't really hide its scorn for the US policy in Iraq. Naturally, Sarah and I love it. If only we could have studied this kind of Spanish all along! Our favorite lead was with "Bush sends more troops to Iraq and hopes that the plan will work this time." A graphic described how the money for the new troops could otherwise be used (curing AIDS, helping the poorest countries, etc.).