existential crisis

So, I went to Spain. It was pretty cool.
Now I'm back and I have this blog and I'm not really sure what to do with it. I don't really want to post just to throw stuff out there into the interwebs, and I don't really have a vision for this thing as of now, but I have really enjoyed writing the entries. So I'll be thinking. Maybe once I'm working/studying again something will come to me, I'll keep you posted (ha. ha.). I did recently come into quite a few thought-provoking books so maybe this will become my stream-of-consciousness outlet working through those. I don't know, we'll see. Anyway just in case any of you out there were on tenterhooks awaiting my next post (ha. ha.), this is your cue to chill out, take your mouse off the refresh page button, and return to one of your normally scheduled online haunts. Unless of course you've got an idea for this blog, then lay it on me! And thank you for reading, it's been a trip.

Peace out, kids :)

ps. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. 

Spanish lessons

This is sort of a stream-of-consciousness post, I hope it's not too scattered to follow, and I hope you laugh. Or at least crack a little bit of a smile.

So my dad has taken a sudden interest in Spanish and has asked me to teach him some phrases. Those of you that know my father will probably take great pleasure in reading this. Those of you that don't, this is my dad:

No, that is not his real hair. Yes, he is a BAMF, and yes, he is a gun-toting, immigration disparaging, hegemonically-masculine, "if you come to America you better speak English," conservative republican. Although we rarely see eye-to-eye on such matters, I love him and he'll always be my hero. 

These are the words/phrases he has asked for: 

     Cauliflower: what? why do you want to know how to say cauliflower? ok, well, in anycase, it is coliflor. He didn't try to pronounce this one, just nodded his head in acceptance.
   
     "my child" or "my daughter": mi niña (mee nee-nyah) or mi hija (mee ee-hah). His attempts at pronouncing these were as follows: "meeeneeena...meeeeena..is that it? am I saying it right? mee neeena? what was the other one? meeeha? heema? mee-ha!" Yep, close enough.
     
     "the dumb dog" (directed at our puppy, Pauly. My father has always had a strange way of showing affection): la perra tonta (it's a she, also I don't recommend using this phrase unless it is explicitly clear that you are actually speaking of an actual female dog). "meeaa pero tonto...tonto pero! what is it again? mee peara tanta...(followed by several other variations on this theme, but finally) mee peara tonta!" Go dad, look at you learning Spanish!

     To preface this last one, my dad is a little obsessive compulsive about the bathroom we share. The other night around 11 he rousted me out of my warm snuggly bed in order to instruct me on the proper way to enter and close the shower curtain (I wish I was kidding). This is the conversation that followed: "Let me show you something, let me show you something, how do you get in the shower?" Through the side farthest from the showerhead of course. "No, that is not acceptable, you go like thiiiiiissss (showing me how to open the shower curtain from the side closest to the showerhead), and then like thiiiiis (how to get in), and then you go like thiiiiis (how to close it), and everything is hunky-dory. Kate, say this, 'I am a slob.' I'm going to call up that lady you stayed with in Spain, how do you say 'Hello! I am the father of the slob that just left your place!' in es-pan-ol?" I did not translate this for him.

In other news, I made my first tortilla española today!

And another photo of my dad just because it's a good one, he loves that thing. 

Peace, ladies and gents.

The Shock of Teapots

"...Travel returns us in just this way to sharpness of notice; and to be saturated in the sight of what is entirely new - the sun at an unaccustomed slope, stretched across the northland, separate from the infiltrating dusk that always seems about to fall through clear gray Stockholm - is to revisit the enigmatically lit puppet-stage outlines of childhood: those mental photographs and dreaming woodcuts or engravings that we retain from our earliest years. What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, imprinted, eternally seen. Travelers regain this ghost-seizing brightness, eeriness, firstness.

     They regain it because they have cut themselves loose from their own society, from every society; they are, for a while, floating vagabonds, like astronauts out for a space walk on a long free line. They are subject to preternatural exhilarations, absurd horizons, unexpected forms and transmutations: the matter-of-fact (a battered old stoop, say, or the shape of a door) appears beautiful; or a stone that at home would not merit the blink of your eye here arrests you with its absolute particularity - just because it is what your hand already intimately knows. You think: a stone, a stone! They have stones here too! And you think: how uncannily the planet is girdled, as stone-speckled in Sweden as in New York. For the vagabond-voyeur (and for travelers voyeurism is irresistible), nothing is not for notice, nothing is banal, nothing is ordinary: not a rock, not the shoulder of a passer-by, not a teapot.

     ...This is what travelers discover: that when you sever the links of normality and its claims, when you break off from the quotidian, it is the teapots that truly shock. Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey. Nothing shakes the heart so much as meeting - far, far away - what you last met at home. Some say that travelers are informal anthropologists. But it is ontology - the investigation of the nature of being - that travelers do. Call it the flooding-in of the real...When travelers stare at heads and ears and necks and beards and mustaches, they are - in the encapsulated force of the selection - making art: portraits, voice sonatinas, the quick haiku of a strictly triangular nostril.

     Traveling is seeing; it is the implicit that we travel by. Travelers are fantasists, conjurers, seers - and what they finally discover is that every round object everywhere is a crystal ball: stone, teapot, the marvelous globe of the human eye."

     -from "The Shock of Teapots," Cynthia Ozick

Just found out I will be traveling once again, in March I will be off to Stockholm, Sweden for the International Labor Process Conference! woo-hoo!

Home

This morning, after almost 11 glorious hours of sleep, I was awakened by a warm, wet sniffling sound next to my head and in quick succession the warm, wiggly, furry body at the other end of that sniffling leaping onto me and my bed! She's not yet fully grown, but even at about 30 pounds having this: 

Pauly

jumping all over you first thing in the morning is a little chocante. But, she decided it was time to get up and that was that. I've also been welcomed home by my first snow of the season! 

Upon leaving my room the first thing I heard was my mother say, "Oh no they're going to kill her cows!" I have no idea of the context or the meaning of this, all I know is it is good to be back home with my quirky family once again (my father also asked me randomly if they have microwaves in Spain...sigh). Also for breakfast I had a giant Crispin apple and toast with PEANUT BUTTER! (Allison if you're reading I know you will be really excited about this haha). 
     As a side note, besides the houses and highways some of the first things I recognized from the plane on the flight in were baseball fields and swimming pools, lots of them! Welcome to amurrica, errbody. Also my flight from Madrid to DC was filled with about 30 other students returning from studying abroad in Spain so we all had a good time chatting about our respective experiences. Of course most of them had been to la Noche Vieja in Salamanca so that was a little depressing to hear everyone talking about how incredible it was, but as is life. 
     During my layover in Dulles I stopped at an Auntie Anne's for dinner (great life choices?) and I had the hardest time understanding the woman. She was speaking English but I was still listening in Spanish and I had to keep asking her to repeat things. Finally when she was getting me my drink she asked me what I thought was "Quieres arreglar el dinero?" or something about the money because she had rung up the sale wrong, but after the 4th time repeating I realized she was asking "Strawberry or regular lemonade?" Woah, buddy. 
     Anyway, I'm safely HOME and about to enjoy leftover Thanksgiving dinner with my family. I hope all the study abroad kids had/are having a safe trip home (welcome home!) and the rest of you are enjoying your weekends! 


God bless :)

leaving Salamanca

So here I am, sitting in the Madrid Barajas airport, people watching, chillin’ out, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m leaving this place in a little less than 15 hours. The despedida from Salamanca was as bittersweet as they come, complete with long-awaited hugs, sort-of-awkward duplicated and triplicated goodbyes, homemade sugar cookies (thank you Kara!), a few tears, and perhaps the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen since I’ve been here in Spain.

                After packing and repacking my suitcases a few times to get the right balance of weight and saying adios to my apartment I wandered around the city for about an hour saying goodbye to some of my favorite places. (A side note - if you are still in Salamanca or if you have plans to go, one of my favorite places to go and just sit is this ledge that is off to the right side of la Facultad de Ciencias y Ciencias Quimicas. It’s just the right size to hop up on and sit comfortably and you’ve got a great view of the river and the part of the city across the river. I’d sometimes go there at night just to sit and be with my thoughts; it might seem a little sketchy but it’s really quite peaceful.) Anyway, after exploring a bit I went to tomar un café with Kara and then we made sugar cookies! After taking the exam for my language class we were off to la fiesta de despedida which was a wonderful way to end my last day in Salamanca, I got to see all the students from the program as well as some professors and las señoras.

                I cannot lie, I definitely got the waterworks on the bus driving away and watching the Cathedral and the city disappear into the distance.  Thinking about all of the people I’ve gotten to know and the inevitability of losing contact with some of them is the most painful thought. However, in between the moments of melancholy I think about how excited I am to see my family, their welcoming familiar faces and voices after three and a half months of newness and unfamiliarity. I am also beyond excited to see my dog!!! I’m excited for home cooked venison stew and cuddling all cozy in my bed with a book and watching the snow fall on the trees outside my window. I’m excited for all the smells and sounds of home, for midnight mass on Christmas, and for DRIVING (I miss driving so much, roadtrip anyone?).

                As sad as I am to leave, I take comfort in the fact that Salamanca and all my experiences here in Spain have left such an impression on my heart and soul and mind that I will not soon forget them. And of course time and prayer heals all things so this heartbreak will not last.

I guess I just want to end with a thank you to IES Abroad and all of the Salamantinos (by birth and by choice) that I’ve gotten to know, you made my time in Salamanca the indescribable experience that it has been. J 

¡Abrazos!   

Ps. this post is a little behind, I am now in Dulles in DC waiting for my connecting flight to Pittsburgh, it is so strange to hear so many people with American accents speaking English again! 

lost & found

Things that I have lost here in Spain:

1. One old Canon PowerShot complete with 4GM memory card. I hope the person who has it enjoys it.
2. One grey ambidextrous glove in Madrid.
3. Little pieces of my heart all over; some will stay with people and some will stay here in my favorite nooks  and crannies in Salamanca.
4. My fear of public transportation. (don't laugh city slickers)
5. Fear of travelling alone.
6. Fear of being in a whole new country where the people speak a different language.
7. My drinking-a-whole-glass-of-an-alcoholic-beverage virginity.
8. Occasionally my mind.
9. Stereotypes of Spaniards (at least most of them).
10. Countless hairs and skin cells that are now scattered all around Salamanca. (betcha didn't think about that one, didja?)

Things that I have found:

1. An acorn, a small jar of dirt, and a pinecone on el Camino de Santiago.
2. A vibrant and beautiful spiritual community that is living here from which I hope to take back home bits and pieces.
3. Beautiful, beautiful, people - a few of which I am very proud to call friends (from all over the world!).
4. New shoes.
5. A different perspective on everything from religion to sidewalk etiquette.
6. Another home and family away from home and family.
7. A different sense of independence.
8. That sometimes crosswalk lights really can be useful (Sarah & Brian I give you permission to laugh).
9. A desire to speak Spanish, lots and lots of Spanish.
10. A taste for mushrooms and salad dressing made mostly of olive oil.
11. A new appreciation for fútbol.

And un montón of other things, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.
4 days!?

Baby, it's cold outside

Hello all!

To be completely honest I'm writing this post in order to avoid studying for final exams...I hope you'll enjoy it all the same. :)

The last week has been spent just enjoying the city and the people around me, I've been trying to soak up as many memories and as much of the language as I possibly can. This week is special because of la puente - two Spanish holidays fall in the same week, Tuesday was el Día de la Constitución Española and today (Thursday) is the Immaculate Conception - so basically Spaniards take the whole week off. Combined with the weekend it makes a great time for a quick vacation or in my case, time to enjoy the place I'm in just a few hours more. Because we didn't have classes on Tuesday, Katie, Allison, and I all decided we wanted to take a day trip so we put on our hiking gear and took the autobús about an hour south of Salamanca to a little town called Béjar. From there we hiked a little under two hours to another smaller pueblo called Candelario. Candelario is a tiny little village at the foot of a mountain, which I believe is part of the Sierra de Béjar. It was at one time a Moorish village and se nota in the architecture and city planning. Alongside the streets runs fresh water that started as snow hundreds of feet higher in the mountains. It's a gorgeous, quaint, quiet little place. After wandering around there for awhile we hiked another couple of hours into the mountains around Candelario. Pictures can't capture the beauty of that place, but they're better than words, so enjoy:
(Thank you Allison for the photos! Check out her blog here: Dancing Through Life!)

 Our first glimpse of Candelario.

 ¡vacas en las montañas!

 conquered rock

 a bit of Candelario

 my favorite part about the day: FRESH AIR.  

 Candelario again.

 The water running alongside the street. 

The weather was perfect for senderismo and we had an amazing time just hanging out in the nature all day.

Today, as it is the Immaculate Conception, Allison and I went to mass and we invited a few friends that we've met at En Vivo. I can't be sure, but I think at least they didn't hate it ha. Again I was struck by the oddest feeling of being at once at home and being horribly out of place, the gestures and structure of the mass are all the same but the differences in language and execution of said gestures are enough to make the service feel very foreign. In any case, I feel like I understood a lot more of what was being said this time in comparison with the first few times I went so I take that as a sign of improvement in the language!

 On my walk home I took a different route than usual and thought to myself wow, this could be the last time I walk this sidewalk and see these trees and buildings and people. I guess it's time to start saying my goodbyes, with 8 days left and the majority of those days filled with studying/exam taking/packing...time is flying.

In keeping with the season, my señora decorated the apartment for Christmas! We now have a beautiful nativity/Bethlehem village scene set up in the hallway and various other Christmas appropriate decorations scattered throughout the house. The city has decorated too, there are vibrant Christmas lights hanging over all the streets and streetlights. I've also begun listening to Christmas carols in earnest...'tis the season!

Well, I should really continue studying...thanks for reading again, I hope you are all having a wonderful Thursday. :)

BONUS FOTOS! 

 Katie, my housemate, and I at a little cafe in Madrid! 

 On top of el Palacio de Comunicaciones in Madrid.

 Inevitable picture of me drooling over sweets... 

It's cold here now, I miss this weather :( 

Christmas Eve

     So this evening I was walking through the city a bit, just kind of existing, and I stopped in front of this building. This building that has stood there for almost 800 years. 800 YEARS. And as I stood there trying to find some kind of context in which to contemplate this building, everything it has stood through, I found that I just couldn't! Standing there in the cold in the dark with my head craned back and my brain all a-jumble, I felt like Christmas Eve.
     You know on Christmas Eve when you're frantically trying to finish wrapping the gifts for your family and it's already almost midnight and you have to get up early to open presents or go to church and you're on the last gift and it's a basketball, or any other really incredibly difficult-to-wrap gift, and you're struggling with the wrapping paper but no matter how much tape you use (or how much wrapping paper you use) there are still holes on either side and part of the gift is sticking out and the paper just won't fit? That's how I felt standing there, as if Salamanca, bueno, Spain rather, were the awkwardly shaped gift and my brain the wrapping paper that just couldn't quite wrap around it.
     But in the end you always leave the gift wrapped as best as you possibly can because, even with parts showing through, you know whoever receives the gift will enjoy it just the same. So that's what I'm left with, my brain only partially wrapped around this wonderful place and only 16 days left to enjoy it and try to add some more tape.

time just keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...

So, let me start by saying the thing that has been occupying my mind for the last couple of days, I have LESS THAN 3 WEEKS LEFT. ACK! I have such a mix of feelings about this, I am at once elated that the day is approaching when I get to see my home(s) and family and friends and sad that my time here is quickly winding down. I've done and seen and learned so much but there is forever more to do and see and learn! In any case, I will be aprovechandome (taking advantage) of the time I have left here in Salamanca to continue getting the most out of this experience [or at least trying to do so :) ].

Last weekend I went to Madrid with my housemate, Katie, and another of the Gettysburgians here, Allison. The city was awesome, easily my favorite of all the big cities I have been to. We ended up staying at Way Hostel, which I highly recommend if you are ever travelling to Madrid! The hostel has such a great vibe, it was very clean and comfortable, and we met some wonderful people there. Apart from the hostel, we saw a lot in the city (we also walked a LOT). In about two and a half days we saw el Real Jardin Botánico (Royal Botanical Garden), El Prado museum, Palacio Real (the Royal Palace), an authentic (albeit displaced) Egyptian temple, beautiful vistas of the city, innumerable tiny side-streets with cozy cafés and bars, Gran Via (the main shopping street), calle de Alcalá (famous for it's imitation of the architecture and street planning in Paris), a whole ton of elaborate beautiful buildings, la Plaza de Cibeles (a plaza with a giant fountain of the Roman goddess Ceres that is kind of iconic of the city), el Oso y Madroño the symbol of the city (a female bear eating fruit from a strawberry tree), el Palacio de Comunicaciones (the former post office, now you can take tours of the building and go to the lookout on top for a great view of the city), lots of prostitutes, the Plaza Mayor, demonstrations against 20-N (the presidential elections) replete with a whole ton of policía in full SWAT gear, street performers, homeless people, a National Geographic store (we were really excited about this), and lots of people! I'm sure I'm forgetting some things but those are basically the highlights. Unfortunately as I didn't have my camera I only have a few pictures; they were taken with my LG camera phone so the quality is not that great, but better than nothing!

 The Egyptian temple

Not sure exactly what this building is but I liked it.  

Part of the Royal Palace 

Snapshot of the Royal Botanical Garden

Thursday was of course Thanksgiving, and we had our own little IES family Thanksgiving dinner which was delicious. I of course missed all of my fam at home but being able to share the evening with great friends and great food here was wonderful. All of the following pics are stolen from Joe Sharp; if you want you can check out his blog here: http://lifeisnotawaitinggame.blogspot.com/

 wine (of course), water, gravy, and blueberry sauce (apparently arándano, the Spanish word for cranberry, is also the Spanish word for blueberry, oops!)

 yum :)

 It was a good try Spain, but your pumpkin pie just does not compare with that back home. Although edible, it was a little heavy on the pumpkin and light on any other kind of spices. 

 ¡hermanas! 

Our table :)

I've just been enjoying a quiet weekend here in Salamanca, catching up on news in the US, writing postcards, and walking around through the city. Something I've come to realize: I see more dogs here on a daily basis than I have seen children in the entire 3 months I've been here! So many dogs, so few I can pet. 

Today I went for a stroll through the city attempting to get lost and discovered that it is nearly impossible, at least within the city center and surrounding area. However, I did find some cute streets that I had not been on before and it was just nice to be out and about enjoying the city without having any particular place to go. 

I'm not sure if this counts as full-fledged creeping or not, but my neighbor in the building across the street is a painter (who frequently leaves the blinds open when he paints) and occasionally while I'm here at my desk working I watch him paint (reminds me of countless hours of watching Bob Ross as a child). Today he was painting a portrait of a man with sunglasses who looked scarily like John Belushi. I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that's who it was. 

Anyway I hope you are all enjoying your weekend and successfully recovering from Thanksgiving/Black Friday. Until next time, ¡love and un abrazo! 

ps. it is 22:33 here as I am finishing this. neat! 

pps. I also discovered this week that there is a significant population of Jehova's Witnesses here in Spain, who knew?? 

Updates!

Hello again! I know it's like some kind of miracle, it's been such a short time since I last posted haha.
 Just a few things:

1. It is the coolest thing that now when I'm walking down the street in Salamanca I can pick up parts of random conversations and actually understand them!

2. MILESTONE! Two Spanish people yesterday complimented me on my Spanish, woo! :)

3. I have seen two rockin' mullets here in the last two days, I'm not sure what that means but I fear it's some kind of omen referring to my impending return to the US...

4. Algo agridulce (something bittersweet): today marks exactly one month until I will be back on US soil :D/:'(

5. I have posted my pictures from Toledo and Porto on facebook, here are the public links:
     Toledo and Rain in Oporto.

Hope you're all having a great Wednedsay, ¡un abrazo! 

Crazy tour guides in Toledo, trabajos in Salamanca, rain in Oporto

Hello loved ones!
I hope as you're reading this all is well, I'm doing great here, a little stressed out because I seem to have misplaced my camera, but I'm in the process of getting that worked out and otherwise I am happy and healthy. We're heading into the home stretch to I've been pretty busy with homework (hence the 3 week gap in posting) and various other excursions.  I have so much I want to tell you about!! But I made myself an outline so that I can keep this post as short, sweet, and attention grabbing as possible.

The weekend after my last post was the weekend of November 1, Dia de Todos los Santos or All Souls Day and once again I had to go to el cementerio to check out the scene for homework in my religion class. Nov. 1st is a national holiday in Spain so every year on that day everybody and their brother heads to the cemetery to spruce up the tombs of their loved ones and chat with the other people in the cemetery. It is as much a day for remembering and honoring the dead as it is a fiesta, so outside of the cemetery of course there were casetas (food vendors) and I even saw that someone ordered pizza delivered to the cemetery. It was fascinating to see the cemetery transformed from a forest of stone to an especie of garden with all kinds of flowers imaginable.

 One of the casetas outside of the cemetery. 

The following Saturday, Nov. 5th, all of us IES kids went on a day trip to Toledo, Spain. Toledo is the famous "city of three cultures" because for many years Muslims, Christians, and Jews all lived in Toledo together in peace and tolerance. For this reason there is a lot of cool blended architecture in the city. Toledo is also famous for it's swords. There is something special about the water that runs in the river Tagus that makes the steel produced in Toledo especially good for sword-making, who knew? In fact, the swords used in the Lord of the Rings movies were all made in Toledo. We took a tour through the city with a cantankerous old man who received about 20 cell phone calls during the course of the tour and also walked in a strange manner. In any case, it was fun and I got to see swords and eat marzipan for the first time!

 View of Toledo from the opposite side of the river. 

 girls :)

 Toledo's sister city is Toledo, OH. 

 This is our goofy tour guide, whenever we passed these guard rail things he would walk over top of them instead of around. Also one of the few phrases in English he knew was "Let's rock and roll!" so we heard that a lot haha.

 I thought this little corner was cute. 

 View of the river Tagus and the city.

 The bridge and the city.

 Swords!

Sword made of mazapan.

Incredible sunset on the way back to Salamanca. 

So, the week that followed our trip to Toledo was kind of intense, I had two large papers due and various other trabajos so I didn't do much else than chill in my room and do work. However, this weekend I traveled to Oporto, Portugal with two other girls from the IES program, one girl from Mexico and another from Colombia! The trip was wet (it rained about 75% of the time we were there) and exhausting (in the best way!) but wonderful! It was the closest thing to a real life adventure that I have probably ever had haha. We arrived in Oporto at 6:45ish in the AM, in the dark and rain and with almost zero idea of where to go to find our hostel. Thankfully one of the girls I was with is a whiz with directions and after about half an hour of trudging through the cold and rain we made it to our hostel, Eden House. We spent the weekend walking around and exploring the city (but mostly walking). We saw various museums, churches, cool buildings, and even the beach! Allison and I got caught in a serious storm while we were visiting the beach but despite the crazy wind and rain we managed to enjoy ourselves quite thoroughly (and of course when we went back to the hostel looking like drowned rats there were a slew of bombónes -cute guys- there haha). Unfortunately I only have the pictures from our first day because I've lost my camera, so none of the ocean unfortunately, but enjoy what few I do have: 

 Cool church, there were a lot of buildings with this type of white and blue painted tile.

 On Friday we went to the market, it was really cool!

 Another church w/ the tiling.

Hanging out in a cute park we found :)

 We went to this military museum that had miniatures of soldiers from every major civilization and war since the prehistoric age. Seeing as it was just Veteran's day a few days ago, I thought this was appropriate. 

 And yet another church. I think this one was my favorite, too bad we couldn't go inside though.

 The Lion Fountain.

 Our hostel!

 Not sure what this building is, but it is pretty and the picture turned out kind of cool. 

 La torre of a church in the city center. 

 Sunset.

 Another church.

La torre at night. 

Well, I think that's it! I hope the pictures were enough to keep your attention, there will (hopefully) be more as soon as I find my camera! In other news, I'm going to Madrid this weekend! Also I will post all of my pictures from the last few weeks on facebook and get public links up on here as soon as that's done. 

So how's home everybody? Leave me some news in the comments! 

Until next time, love you all and God bless :)