One Month in Granada!

Oof, what a busy week! Wednesday, the 17th, marked one month of me living with Concha, and we celebrated by having wine with lunch and then watching an old Fred Astaire movie on TV that evening—of course, accompanied by wine and chocolate. ;) I also got a wonderful surprise in the mail!!! A Valentine’s day package from my big brudder with chocolates and a sweet card and a movie and a wonderful, soft, pink teddy bear I am naming Rosita—basically “Pinky” in Spanish. It’s nice to have something soft and lovely to snuggle at night. Between Concha and Heashen, I had a pretty fantastic day. :)

Also, my friends and I bought super wonderfully cheap plane tickets to go to Barcelona for a long weekend in April! I am realllly excited; I think it’s going to be fantastic. I can’t wait to start exploring Spain more in earnest—Madrid, Sevilla, Toledo, and Barcelona for sure, and probably Bilbao and Córdoba and Valencia and god knows where else! Spain is such a fascinating and beautiful and historical place, and it’s very different from anywhere else I’ve ever lived or traveled to. I feel so very lucky to be here.

I noticed something about my Flamenco music teacher yesterday as well—the really cute little old man I want to put in my pocket and take home, remember? He has beautiful long fingernails on his right hand, and short fingernails on his left hand. Which means, I believe, that he plays the guitar! You see, I remember from playing the violin that in order to play notes precisely it is important to have relatively short fingernails on your left hand, which holds the strings down. I assume it’s similar with guitar. And I bet you he uses his longer fingernails on his right hand as picks to pluck the strings! Ok, so I might be really wrong, because I don’t play the guitar, but this is my hypothesis, and I’m just super proud of myself for making such a cool observation!

I’ve also been noticing that I seem to have a penchant for depressing music. Haha! It doesn’t bother me, I just think it’s interesting that when I have the choice between happy and sad songs, I usually prefer the sad ones. I don’t think it’s because I’m sad, because I certainly feel quite happy here in Granada—which was, and continues to be, a really pleasant surprise.

Oh my, I am just so tired today! I think it must be because I just finished classes for the week and I still have to go back to school to buy plane tickets to France, and I haven’t really decided on which I want to buy yet. That sort of stress is very exhausting to me. But it’s so worth it—my plan is to fly to Paris to visit Kristin (with Elisa) and take a train to visit Nora in Nantes over spring break. How exciting! But the details always stress me out—hostels and trains and planes and buses, and what all do I need to arrange in advance?! Oh boy. Ok, well, off I go. I send my love, please forgive me if it feels a little lethargic today. ;)

Pura Vida,
Kelsey

PS. It is raining almost constantly. I'm trying to perfect my sunshine dance so that I don't have to buy any damned umbrellas...

Fish-capades,"to shit a brick," and puppies: just your average day in Granada

Written February 15, 2010

Hola hola coca cola! Haha, oh man, I crack myself up. That was what my high school Spanish teacher said every day to start class, I think. Señora Waldron, you would be so proud of me now! :P Anyways, on to more important things. Today I think I’ll write about the food here, and my classes. Trust me, you want to read this, unless of course your name is Melissa and you can’t stand fish. In which case, maybe skip this one, honey.

The food here is MAGNIFICENT. You know how they say the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest in the world? Ok, so they might mean in Greece or Italy or something, but I’m really praying they mean Spain, because I eat SO MUCH here, and I want to believe it’s good for me. No, guys, you don’t understand, I eat like a horse. Or maybe two horses. I don’t understand where the food goes; every lunchtime I look at the food Concha gives me and I’m like, “No way. No way that all of that is fitting into my stomach.” But GUYS—I’ve started finishing my portions. It’s LOCO. For the first time in my life, I am actually worried about putting on weight. I’m serious. I am praying to the gods of metabolism to help me out here.

Here’s a typical day of eating for me: Breakfast at 9 am, two pieces of toast, a croissant filled with chocolate, a small muffin, café con leche; Lunch at 2:30 or 3 pm, a large green salad with olives and tuna and corn, a large meat soup OR several rather large pieces of fish OR a plateful of paella OR something similar, half a baguette, and a piece of fruit; dinner at 9:30 pm, a ham and cheese sandwich, toasted to deliciousness, and a yogurt or pudding. SO MUCH FOOD. I swear to god I must eat several loaves of bread a week. But guys, the food in delicious. Really amazing. Concha says she’s not the best cook, but I have to disagree; she has yet to make me something I genuinely don’t like. Sometimes I get kind of sick of all the fish, but I’m all about complete cultural adaptation—I’m kind of hardcore, just sayin’—so I just smile and swallow.

Which reminds me to tell two food stories. The first week I was here, she made me a fish soup, which was mostly pretty yummy—potatoes and carrots and broth and what looked like scallops and clams… and then this other fish. It took me a minute to figure out what it was, but then I lifted a tentacle out of the soup. Ah. Calamari. Squid. Hahaha. I looked at Concha eating away and I thought to myself, “As weird as the texture or flavor may be, you can’t offend this lovely woman, who probably is pulling out all the stops for you during your first week here. I bet this is a delicacy. And hey, I’ve swallowed a lot more disgusting things in my life (cow udder? yech). Bottoms up!” And I ate every bite of that soup. It was kind of hard to chew some of the really intact tentacles just because I felt like I, personally, was killing the poor little Squidums, but you know what, that was one good soup.

The second story comes from today, actually. Concha was going to try to surprise me by making me pescado frito—fried fish, a local specialty. But she couldn’t get the frier to work exactly right, and it kind of just turned into grilled fish, which was, again, mostly wonderful! We had this cod-like white fish which was SO YUMMY, and then this chewy ring things—maybe more squid? Or octopus? Or something… I know it was a sea-life thing. And then, the coup de grace: little tiny fishies, eyes and bones and stomachs and everything still intact. I was like, oh hot damn, I don’t know if I can do this one. I watched to see how she ate them, and she just stuck three or four on her fork and popped ‘em into her mouth. Egad. So I copied her, and oh man, I am not really a picky eater, and fish usually goes down fine for me, but these little fishies tasted a little bit too much like little fishies, if you know what I mean. But you know what, I knew she’d tried so hard to make me a nice surprise and it hadn’t turned out how she wanted, and god help me, I was not going to make her feel any worse. So, I just paired the fish-ums with bread or pieces of the roasted pepper salad (DELICIOUS) or other fish bits, and I gobbled them down. Smiling the whole time. And as soon as I finished lunch, I brushed my teeth really well and ate three cookies that my momma back home sent me. SUCCESS.

So, yes, most of the food I eat here is TO DIE FOR yummy, but sometimes I get an odd little fishy and have to kind of grit my teeth to dig into it. Honestly, it is so worth it to me to make Concha feel good, and also because I convince myself that these odd fish bits must be really good for my health, right? Right.

On to the next subject! Which is classes! I am actually really excited about my classes this semester for two reasons: first of all, they seem really interesting and all my teachers seem great; secondly, because they seem a lot easier than what I’m used to. Hallelujah! A vacation after the nose-to-the-grindstone which was la France!!

My first class of the day today was Spanish Culture and Civilization, and it looks like it’s going to be a lecture-and-notes class, but the teacher is really engaging and asks questions for us to respond to, so I don’t think I’ll fall asleep or anything silly like that. Today we went over the history of Spain from prehistoric times until the Spanish Civil War—wow! It was a great overview, and got me really excited to see what we study in this class.

My second class was Translation, and I have to be honest—it will not be NEARLY as cool and inspiring as my Translation class with Francesca last semester. I was literally sitting in class thinking, “I miss Francesca! And translating in class! And Sylvia Plath and Henry James and Toni Morrison!” But you know what, it’ll be a really good, practical class for me to take if I ever need to get work translating for the tourism industry or a school or other academic institution, because those are the focuses of the class, along with translation technique. I’m hoping it’ll be a nice complement to what I learned last semester, and the teacher is, once again, a pretty cool guy, although, sadly, not Francesca. :(

My third class of the day was Tutorías, which I’ll only have once a week, and I really didn’t know what to expect from it. It’s a class of only four students and the teacher, and it’s supposed to supplement our Spanish learning with grammar and that sort of thing. The teacher is named José, and he is a kick in the pants. What a card. He cracks me up. His favorite word in English is “ass,” which he pronounces with a hilarious Chicago accent; his favorite phrase is “shit a brick,” because he says there’s nothing so expressive in Spanish. He says his life changed the day he learned that expression; there is a before and an after the “shit a brick” phrase came into his life, and he tries to use it every day now. He is also in love/obsessed with Diana Ross, and has pictures of her plastered all over his office, where we have class. He says his only hobby is: doing nothing. Haha! And he pronounces “hobby” the Spanish way, with a very guttural ‘h.’ And demands that we do the same. I might be in love with this man. Hahaha, what a character. Anyways, we’re actually going to be studying/learning street Spanish and Spanish slang in that class because we don’t really need to study grammar anymore (or at least he thinks we don’t).

My last Monday class is Flamenco and Traditional Music of Spain. The first day of class, this little, skinny, balding old man walked into the room, and I was like, oh boy, maybe this wasn’t the best class choice. However, as soon as he put on some Flamenco music and started stomping and banging on the desk like a wild man, I realized I’d made a very good choice. He is the most adorable old man ever; I want to put him in my pocket and take him home with me, you know? And he is SO passionate about music, and in particular Flamenco. Flamenco is so much more than just one tune or even one style of song, and it’s much more than just the dance or just the music or just the singing; it’s a whole culture, and there are so many subcultures and categories and important aspects of it. I am so excited about learning about it all and coming home an expert in this beautiful music!!

So those are my Monday/Wednesday classes and teachers in a nutshell. Tomorrow (today by the time I post this), I have Comparative Study of Literature and the Visual Arts with a really enthusiastic and amiable teacher, as well as Written and Oral Expression, which is a required class that I wasn’t excited about it at first, but I love the teacher and I think it’ll be good for my Spanish, so I’m happy with it after all. Yay!

I wanted to mention one more thing before I sign off and go to bed: today, I was feeling kind of delicate emotionally, kind of down. It was one of THOSE days. Today, I saw five different puppies on my walks to school and back. How can you not be cheered up by bouncy, wobbly-on-their-feet, excited-about-life, floppy-eared, big-pawed, puppy-dog-eyed little woggies that almost fall over when they shake? and run up to sniff at your ankles and smile their puppy dog tongue-y smiles at you? And FIVE of them in one day? Ok, universe, I get it, chin up. Thank you again. I love you, too.

Pura vida (evidentemente),

Kelsey

Granada! A quick recap of my first few weeks.

Hello again! I guess it’s probably time for me to talk about Spain a little, huh? Oh boy, where to begin? (By the way, you guys should definitely send me questions or topics you want me to write about so that I don’t run out of fun stuff to say.)

Well, I think it might be best to begin at the beginning and work my way towards now. Getting here to Granada was probably the most difficult—not logistically, but mentally and emotionally. I remember standing in the Dallas airport as my flight was boarding, crying on the phone with my mom and feeling SO tempted not to get on the plane. But, I did get on the plane, and although I cried quite a bit and it was a pretty miserable 8 or 9 hours, I made it to Madrid, and once I got off the plane there, I felt a LOT better. People were speaking Spanish and strutting around in their European clothes, and I said to myself, “Ok, you can do this. You WANT this. This is important to you, and you’re not going to let life’s unexpected shiftings ruin a wonderful opportunity for you, are you? NO.” And I got my old French strut going and sashayed on over to my gate. There were a ton of other Americans in my program on my flight, and we were all nervous together (although it made me feel all old and wise to be able to say, “It’ll be ok, guys, trust me—I’ve done this before”). I bonded with a few girls waiting for our bags once we got to Granada, too, and ended up taking a taxi to the hotel with them. It was pretty funny, because we were a huge group of clueless American students, and no one wanted to take the lead and figure out if we should take a bus or taxis, so this guy (I still cant remember which guy, and there’s only like six in my program, oops, I must have been really tired) and I were like, OK, GUYS, FOLLOW US, and we took off and got everyone lined up, and then hopped in the first taxis and off we went! I was so proud of myself.

I have to say, I definitely saw myself at the beginning of last semester in the faces of every single one of my peers that day, and I said to myself, “Wow, look at how far you have come, Kelsey, when it comes to facing your fears and walking straight into the face of danger—and with a smile! And think of how far each of these fresh, scared young faces is going to come over the course of the next few months—and think of how far YOU will come, too, even farther than you can imagine in this moment.” And it made me feel really good about my decision to come to Granada. I think I didn’t get to appreciate how much growing I did last semester when I was home over Christmas because there was too much else going on in my life, but I’m beginning to really acknowledge it now. It makes me think that, despite everything which may have gone wrong or may have SEEMED to have gone wrong, something went right, because I did what was right for me, even when it was almost too hard. I stayed true to myself in the face of failure and rejection and the Unknown, and I came out the other side still standing. I have an inkling that somewhere down the line, I will look back and see that everything happened just as it should have in order for me to grow and become the person I am becoming. WOW, right?!

Then, of course, I got to the hotel and absolutely crashed. I was so exhausted that pretty much as soon as I’d taken a quick shower and sat down, I started bawling and decided to take a nap. It was a good decision. After my nap, I wandered around the area near the Cathedral without really knowing where I was or where I was going, and when I got back to the hotel, I ran into the girls I’d taken the taxi with and a few others and we went out to get tapas and sangria for dinner. Another great decision. I got to have some bonding time with some really nice girls who are now my friends, and the sangria was delicious.

The next day, we met our host families! My host mama is the bestest ever. Her name is Concepción, but she goes by Concha, and she is a very short, rather round and really lovely little Spanish lady who is probably in her late 50s or early 60s. I think I’ve described her to various people as a very cheerful watermelon with appendages, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. She is the cutest little lady ever—and I mean little: when I wear shoes with any heel at all, I feel like I tower over her. And everything in the house is pretty low to the ground accordingly, so I sort of feel like I’m living with a hobbit. She is widowed and has no children, but she does have siblings (not sure how many, although I know she has a brother who died of cancer a few years ago and a sister who won a car on a gameshow when she was my age). She loves game shows, and our favorite is Pasapalabra, a word game one, and I’m getting to the point where I can understand the announcer (who speaks at hyperspeed) and sometimes I can actually say the answer before the contestants! I’m very proud of myself. She collects fridge magnets and cool trinkets from her travels, which have taken her as far as Egypt, Greece, Scotland, and Morocco. Concha was absolutely charmed by the gifts I brought her from home, and the day after I gave them to her, she had gone out and bought me a special mug all of my own that I can use here and then take home when I leave “to remember my time in Granada, ” she said. I was so touched that she had gone out of her way to get me a beautiful little ceramic mug, and it’s very traditional of Granada in decoration. I love my mug. :) Concha also loves movies, and she goes to the cinema with her friends a few times a week, usually. She is also super smart—she knows so much about Granada, and Spain, and the world in general. Sometimes I think she knows more about the United States than I do! She has also read a LOT in her life, and she has opened up her personal library to me if I want to read some García Lorca or Cervantes while I’m here. I think I will take her up on the offer! She watches a lot of TV, but she is often working on an embroidery project or something else while watching the news or whatever is on. I feel like I’m a lot more caught up on world news since I’ve been here just from talking to Concha and watching the news with her on occasion. Basically, I love Concha and I think she is the greatest little Spanish lady in the world. Oh, and, she says her doctor told her she has to lose ten kilos (oy! that’s a lot!), so she’s going to start going swimming every Tuesday and Thursday while I’m in my morning classes. She’s already lost over a kilo! Holy cow! I’m very proud.

Oh, and, one last rave about my awesome host mama—when I went to Morocco, I had a cold, so she made me a special bocadillo (sandwich/sack lunch) and stuck in an orange, a yogurt, and two little chocolates “para mimarme”—to spoil me. It was the sweetest thing ever. AND, when I went to Venice, she made me TWO bocadillos complete with fruit and chocolates. OH, AND, one night after I had been crying on the phone with my mom at home, I told her that I was a little homesick (and that I was sad because my boyfriend had just broken up with me, blah blah, we bonded, it was great), but not to worry about me. The next night, she fixed me a hamburger for dinner to make me feel less homesick. She could have fixed me freaking grits or a baloney sandwich or anything, just knowing that she had gone out of her way to fix something she’d never made before to make me feel better and more at home absolutely FILLED me with warmth and goodness. This is a good woman I’m living with. She has a wonderful heart. And now whenever she can tell I’ve had a hard day, or when I just get back from a long trip, she fixes me hamburgers. :) It makes me extraordinarily happy. As in, incandescently happy. Her desire for me to be happy is palpable, and she does a good job.

So anyways, orientation was pretty cool. We got to do a little guided sightseeing of the city, which was nice, but I’ll definitely have to go back to all the places we went now that I actually have a good feeling for the city. We walked up through the Albaycín, a beautiful neighborhood of whitewashed buildings on the sister hill of the one the Alhambra is on. At the top, there was a gorgeous viewpoint of the Alhambra which we took some pictures at—I’ll try to add a picture to this post if I remember. While we were at the viewpoint, two guitarists and a singer sat down at the foot of this really tall cross and started playing traditional Spanish music. Dare I say Flamenco? I’m taking a class about Flamenco music, but I’m still not sure where the line is drawn between Flamenco and other traditional styles. Anyways, it was BEAUTIFUL. Just la guitarra, las palmas, y la voz. ENCHANTING. That’s when I really started falling in love with Granada, I think—at the top of the Albaycín, looking at the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevadas in the distance, listening to this incredible music—and there was even an ADORABLE PUPPY rolling around on the ground near the musicians!!!! Can you imagine how high in the sky I was in that moment?! REALLY HIGH.

We also went to the Alhambra as a group. For those of you who don’t know, haven’t looked it up, or I haven’t already explained it to, the Alhambra is the old Moorish city/palace/fortress on the hilltop overlooking Granada that was the last Moorish stronghold during the Christian Reconquista of Spain. It is absolutely decadent. The architecture, the gardens, the rooms upon rooms, the maze that is the cellar, the fact that there are MULTIPLE palaces, as well as a summer house for when they got bored of their normal palaces—GEEZ. It’s awesome. I took lots of pictures which are on facebook, and you can also google image search it and gawk your heart out. Or come visit me and we can go see it together!! Haha!

The first few times I walked alone to the school and back home, I was a little nervous, but now I have an established route, as well as variations if I feel like switching things up. I love my normal route because I get to walk next to a river for awhile. The river is different every day—it was tumultuous and muddy the first few days we were here, then it kind of calmed down and grew smaller and more tranquil for awhile, and now that the rain is back, it’s muddy and rushing again. I love that there is a river to walk next to, I feel like that is so good for me, being the water baby I am. Sometimes there are geese on some of the little sandbars in the river, and sometimes they’re all tucked into themselves, asleep. It is super cute, and I keep meaning to take my camera to school so I can take a picture of them.

I feel like I’m being really random. I hope that doesn’t bother anyone. I’m just writing things as they come to my mind, and I know you probably have tons of questions and are frustrated with all my bouncing around, but give a girl a break, I just finished being sick and doing my first week of school! :P Speaking of school! I tested into the higher level, yeah I know, no surprise, but I was still nervous, yeah, also no surprise. I am taking the following classes: Monday and Wednesday I have Spanish Civilization and Culture, English/Spanish Translation, and Flamenco and Traditional Spanish Music; Tuesday and Thursday I have Comparative Study of Spanish Literature and the Visual Arts and Spanish Written and Oral Expression. I also have a few sort of quarter credit classes—Phonetics, Tutorias (still not sure what this is), and Granada Seminar (in which we will learn about specific cultural stuff, like Flamenco, bullfights, olive oil, wine, etc.). All of my classes seem great so far, and I like the looks of all of my teachers. I think most of our grades will be based on in-class work, participation, and the two tests we’ll have over the course of the semester. Sounds manageable! And, if you notice, I have no classes on Fridays. Yay! Three day weekends ALL the time! Which means more travelling, I hope! I really want to explore Spain—Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo, Bilbao, Sevilla, etc—as well as the rest of Europe. I know it’s ambitious, but I have faith that I can stretch my moneys and make it happen. Besides, there are only a few places I absolutely HAVE to go, and then everything else is gravy.

Alright, it’s time for me to get some sleep (I am writing this at home and will post it later), so I will have to sign off for now. If you have made it this far reading everything I’ve written, geez, good job! Keep up the good work! I promise I wont always write so much and so often, but it’s been really nice to get this all down, even if it is a jumbled mess. Better a jumbled mess in a blog than in my head. :) I miss you guys a lot, and I hope your lives are as rewarding and invigorating as mine has been of late, but with a little less illness. ;)

Love, and pura vida,
Kelsey