Last Friday I spent the day in Toledo at a meeting about gender-based violence with the leaders of Castilla La Mancha (the president of the autonomous region can be seen in the photo--he is the man in the center with the grey suit jacket). My job was to interpret for Maysa, Mukarram (both from Jordan) and Rawda (from the Palestinian territories). I was told there would be headsets and simultaneous interpretation and my job would be to translate when we had breaks and meet and greets. It turned out not to be the case, and I spent the better part of a day whispering to Maysa in English while she wrote what I said into Arabic so Mukarram could understand. Rawda couldn't hear me, so we spent breaks filling her in on what was discussed. I admire professional interpreters because after one day my head hurt and I didn't know which language I was speaking, English, Arabic or Spanish.

While it was interesting to learn about the different institutions in place to prevent gender based and domestic violence in Castilla La Mancha, most of it was statistics and numbers and little substance. One the one hand, it seems as Spain is truly confronting the issue of domestic violence, whereas in the U.S. we don't have any government-based institutions that work to prevent and talk about this issue and its implications in society. We assume we have already made everything "equal" since women now work at the same jobs as men. Problem solved, right? As the head of the Equality department in Ecuador's government told me, "this problem is everywhere, maybe it just seems like it more in Spain because they are actually vocal about it."

My new diet

Here in Spain they really like to do their blood and urine analyses. And boy is it a process. Things are never as easy as you think they might be. First you have to buy a cup at the pharmacy, a special "pee" cup. Then you do the deed, and yes you have to carry it with you to the clinic. With you. On the subway. And if you forget the referral form that the doctor filled out for your analysis, then you are screwed. Yes, you have to go back home in order to get it. No, we do not have it on file. That would be an invasion of privacy laws. But we will wait while you take a 30 minute metro ride home and a 30 minute metro ride back in order for you to get your form. And when you come back we will leave the door open for the entire waiting room to watch you get your blood drawn while the nurse does not even try to distract you by small talk so you instead focus on a poster advertising travel in the Canary Islands.

Diagnosis: low blood pressure, but in the normal range.
Prescription: Eat salty food and drink Coca Cola

Either doctors in Spain are crazy or genius. Still deciding.

Turkey Day

My new flat

I have returned to the center of Madrid!

I just moved in last weekend to a flat near the Quevedo metro stop, a 20 minute walk from Sol, and a ten minute walk from Malasaña, my favorite neighborhood. I am living with a girl named Inés from Albacete who is studying to be a nurse. I am going to miss my old roommates, but it was hard living so far away from the center (even though Madrid has a good transportation center, it took me 1.5 hours to get home one night from the center on two metro lines and one night bus). I spend all my time in the center for arabic classes and my volunteer job, so it just makes sense to be able to walk home at night. Plus it is an old flat and I love all things old!

Off to the races

Continuing my streak of randomness, I decided to spend a recent Sunday at the Hipódromo outside of Madrid, watching a horse race. My friend Meagan had an extra free ticket so we took a bus ride out to Zarzuela, a nearby town to spend a day at the races, although extremely under dressed for this type of crowd. Motivated by our free tickets, the four of us decided to each put up 4 euro on the horse with the most absurd name, in this case it was #5 Canibal. To our random luck, he won the race and we won an incredible sum of 12 euro. We promptly spent the money on beer and spent the rest of the races hanging out on the grass.

Recent visit to Alicante

Although I love living in Madrid, I needed some fresh sea air, so I headed to Alicante for the weekend to visit Mariana (my flatmate last year) and her boyfriend Jeff. I took my coworker Andrew along (from Portland) and we spent two days feasting and wandering the city.

Encuentro Internacional sobre violencia de género

Next Friday I will be volunteering as an interpreter for women from various parts of the world who will be in Madrid for the International Meeting of Gender-based Violence. Women will be coming from Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East to spend the week in Madrid and nearby areas discussing domestic and gender-based violence.

Menos cumbres, más legumbres!

I spent Friday afternoon, kind of by accident, marching down the streets of Madrid protesting poverty and the lack of action by the main countries involved in the Millenium Goals. People in Madrid seem to love their protests (this protest garnered 3,000 people, anything in Seattle would pale in comparison, unless it were anti-Bush or anti-WTO) and the police seem to have the coordination down, it barely disrupted traffic. I hadn't exactly planned on going, since that morning I didn't even realize it was going on, but I went in to Solidaridad Internacional, an NGO started in Madrid, to interview for a volunteer position at a fair trade store. Sandra, the volunteer coordinator, and I bonded over food (Venezuelan food is similar to Colombian, where she is from) and she invited me to the protest. We spent the first half on the street catching large balloons that were being thrown from the windows three stories up, while dodging cars and motos, and trying not to pop the balloons. The organization I marched with is affiliated with Pobreza Cero and they are organizing marches to hold governments accountable for poverty reduction, and to not use the financial crisis as an excuse. The protest was very spirited but I was a bit disappointed to see that at the end, a majority of the people (teenage girls) skipped the first part of the march and waited at the end near the stage because Dani, the singer of El Canto del Loco (a Spanish pop band) was there to perform. But I guess people don't show up if there are no big names. Sadly.

I head to the fair trade store on Tuesday to begin training and figure out my schedule, but I am excited to finally start volunteering and feeling as though I am giving back in some way like I am used to doing in Seattle. The store is in La Casa Encendida, which is a cultural center that has exhibits and film screenings which is pretty cool (even though it is run by Caja Madrid, a fairly large bank).

Picnic en Retiro

A favorite pastime here in Madrid is spending the weekend at Retiro Park, which is like their Central Park, it is right in the middle of downtown Madrid and it is huge. There is a pond with rowboats, restaurants with outdoor seating, and trails for running. Weekends are usually spent lazying around listening to music and drinking a cerveza or two.

This Saturday happened to be a goodbye party for a friend of Mariana's, so a group of about 20 or 30 people gathered to play music ranging from Cuban to flamenco. Although gatherings like this are not technically legal (the beer drinking part), cops usually turn their backs as they do with most public drinking (once in awhile I think they are pressured to crack down). Saturday they were determined to be annoying and came over to complain that Jaime had an amp plugged in. He unplugged it and the rest of the day was acoustic, but nonetheless we were surrounded by 4 cop cars and about 10 cops just hanging out watching us. There are people being robbed in the city (like me) and they put half of the park's cops on us, a harmless group of musicians and us, the "chorus" putting on a free music show for everyone. But apparently we were in the zone of a lot of "junkies" which when they pronounce it it sounds like "yankees" so I get confused.

"There are a lot of Americans in this area??"
"No...jankees".

In other news, Mariana leaves for Cork, Ireland this Saturday to study English for the month of October. If she can find a nanny position or a job in a bar she will stay through November maybe I can find a cheap flight through Ryanair.

Picture at right (The Venezuelans and moi):
Julio, Anais (Mariana's cousin), Jeff, Mariana and me

azúcar "panameño"

A sugar packet from my local cafetería.

Café Supreme "The Panamanian"

Tuna

This Friday night I hopped on a train out of the city to Alcalá de Henares, a 35 minute ride away, to visit my friend Kate (from Dallas). She just recently moved over there and I decided to go visit since it is a cute college town and the cañas and tapas are pretty cheap.

Our walk from the train station to the first bar proved very eventful. First we run into this Romanian guy who explains the entire story of some castle in Transylvania where they used to execute people. Interesting. Then while walking from bar 1 to bar 2, we are stopped and serenaded by a tunero from Salamanca (see example picture above of the amazingly nerdy Rick Steves playing tambourine with a tuna in Salamanca). He follows us for a few blocks and then takes us to the big Tuna reunion dinner. We are escorted to this back banquet room full of tuneros and their famillies, and are given jamón ibérico, mussels on potato chips, empanadas, and copious amounts of cerveza. Every few minutes, tuneros from different places (Salamanca, Alcalá, Canary Islands, etc) break out into music and everyone starts singing. Pretty amusing.

In other news, my wallet was returned to the police station, complete with everything but my 2 debit cards and my money. They even put my keys (worth 39 euro) in my coin purse and left my El Corte Ingles gift card that had 38 euro on it. Such nice thieves here in Madrid.

Next week is my first full week of work, afternoon private classes and Arabic classes. After three months of vacation it will be very difficult to wake up at 7:20 every morning. Time to get back to work...

Venezuela!

I just booked a flight to Venezuela!

I will be there from December 19 to January 9.

Christmas in Caracas and New Year's on the island of Margarita in the Caribbean.

This means I won't be at home for Christmas, which sucks, but I have to take advantage of the opportunity to go with Mariana (my roommate last year) and stay with her family to get an idea of what Venezuela is really like.

Christmas 2010 will be in Seattle, don't worry Mom.

Welcome back to Madrid

Living in Madrid makes one paranoid. Paranoid that someone will run off with your wallet, or slash your purse from the bottom, or distract you while their friend takes off with whatever you have on you.

I myself have been extremely "pendiente" of the fact that Madrid houses gazillions of professional purse snatchers, and have spent the past year convinced that I would not fall into the same "guiri" trap as my compatriots.

My first weekend back in Madrid proved that goal unachievable. While at a bar with my friend in the Antón Martín neighborhood, my purse was stolen, and everything in it. And the worst part wasn't that it got stolen. The worst part was the headache and paperwork that came next.

Things that got stolen:
1. NIE (residency card): I will not get a new one until oh maybe March which really helps since it is required by law that you carry ID and I don't like carrying my passport on me in case it gets stolen which would render me unidentifiable in the eyes of the law here
2. Keys: it cost me 39 euro to get three new keys made
3. Debit cards: they ran off with my debit cards and bought 200 euro worth of metro passes. In order to get new cards I visited my bank three times in three days.
4. My cell phone: cost me 39 euro to replace it, and 4 trips to the Vodafone store in 3 days because their system was "down".

I now have the "denuncia" from the police station which states that yes, Maya Sparks, guiri, did get her stuff stolen, and we put a huge stamp on it to prove that. Took me 2 trips to the Comisaría in 3 days to get all the paperwork done.

It was bound to happen though, everyone has a purse snatching story, and some much worse than mine. My roommate's cousin had her card duplicated and the password stolen, and had upwards of 5,000 euros charged to her credit card from various countries in Europe. Thieves caught the travel bug apparently. What they had done was during the middle of the night taken apart the ATM machine and put their own machine inside it which was able to copy the card while the card was inside the machine, then with a camera mounted above the ATM, they read the password as the person types it on the keypad. After she discovered her money was gone a few days later the bank said they could take no responsibility because the ATM was outside of the bank and therefore outside of its responsibility. Unbelievable.

Propaganda at its finest

If Oliver Stone took the time to interview expats from Venezuela and Bolivia and other "socialist" nations, he might begin to see the reality of living under the so-called Bolivarian revolutions. Poverty, corruption, crime, and a stifling of freedom of the press.

Qué viva la puta revolución!

My new piso

Sorry about the 3+ month hiatus, I have been busy touring Italy, Northern Spain, and every restaurant in the metropolitan Seattle area. A few pounds heavier, but oh so happy with all the food I have eaten, I am back in Madrid, and ready for a new school year.

I am living further from the center which at first I was hesitant about because I love being able to walk to everything. But I am within walking distance of school, and nearby all of my private classes, and my roommates are great. Silvia, my coworker, owns the house, and Ana is an English teacher at a nearby school. And another plus: I don't have to stand on a stool to reach my bed.

Above: some pictures of my new place, plus the view from my room.

Barça 2, Manchester United 0

Last night Barça beat Manchester United 2-0 which makes them essentially the best football (sorry, soccer) team in the world. They won the Spanish Liga, the Copa del Rey, AND decisively, the Champion's League final.

This is the amazing 2nd goal by Messi, Barça's Argentinian player, who may possibly be the best player in the world:

Denmark

The weekend of May 15-17th, while madrileños were busy celebrating their patron saint, San Isidro, I jetted off to Denmark to meet up with my friend Kaeleen, who had been sent to Helsinki for work (lucky girl). For some time I have been a bit curious to see how life is in the northern European countries, especially since republicans keep scaring everyone and saying that the U.S. is going to turn out like them socialists in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. Which yes, would be the end of the world as we know it.

Yes, I was a bit shocked to hear that the average income tax is 50%, but Danes take advantage of a very efficient health care system, where even the most advanced surgeries are covered (and they don't have to wait forever like opponents would have you believe). If they are laid off, there are extensive unemployment benefits. Generally socialist and capitalist systems are considered mutually exclusive, leading me to think that entrepreneurship would be stifled in Denmark, but it is quite the opposite. We stayed at a B&B in Kalstrup, a half hour outside of the capital of Kobenhavn, with Eva and Asger, an incredibly nice, well-traveled, tri-lingual Danish couple. I spent our car rides to the train station and back inquiring about Denmarks pseudo-Socialist system. Asger said now that he is a retired schoolteacher and principal, Eva and he run the B&B which actually earns them more money than teaching. The taxes on small businesses are very low, compared with larger corporations. While he was teaching, he was taxed so heavily that for every 100 DKK he made, he pocketed 38. ($1 USD=5DKK) Small businesses are encouraged to not get to big, or else they are heavily taxed. This would seem to be a positive, as more small businesses competing is better for consumers, and you don't risk the problems that occur when a sector is run by large conglomerates who have one objective.

The highlights of Denmark I would have to say were Tivoli Gardens and Eva and Asger's house. Tivoli Gardens is the oldest amusement park in the world, opened in 1843, and was Walt Disney's inspiration for Disneyland. It was like walking back in time, before the current over-commercialized super expensive theme parks took over. There was a pirate ship, a Chinese themed stage, a Dragon boat lake, and a ton of things going on--concerts, interpretations (one free-style dance show that was a bit strange) and a night rock concert. Kaeleen and I had some amazing Italian food as well (though expensive, because hey, it is Denmark).

The second highlight of the trip was of course Eva and Asger's house and beautiful yard. We stayed with them on the top floor of their A-frame house, and they made us breakfast every morning, with organic fresh-baked bread, cheeses, and soft boiled eggs. They introduced me to Norwegian brown cheese (it has various names) that is a soft cheese that is caramelized. I am now a convert. On the last day I was there, Asger led us on an expedition trying to find brown cheese for me to take back to Madrid. We found it and I bought 2 packages of it, one of which was quickly consumed by Mariana (my roommate) and I in less than a week. Eva insisted I liked it because of my Norwegian heritage. Kaeleen returned to Seattle and found the cheese in Ballard, which makes sense. I told her it would be way more likely she found it there than I find it in Madrid, despite the proximity to Scandinavia.

All in all a quiet and tranquil stay (emphasis on tranquil). It is worlds away from Spain, as you would expect for a country whose population is barely that of the city of Madrid.

Pictures:
1. flower pot in Eva and Asger's yard
2. Tivoli Gardens in Kobenhavn
3. Eva and Asger in front of their house
4. amazing Norwegian brown cheese
5. Kaeleen and I on the swings that Asger built
6. Kaeleen taking a picture at the lake near Eva and Asger's house in Karlstrup

Oooo la gripe

I have to admit. I spent two days stressing out about the swine flu or "la gripe porcina". I read everything I could, I informed my roommate, she laughed as I launched into explanations I had read in the NY Times and the Economist. People began arriving in Spain infected with the flu, and mask-covered pedestrians started sprouting up everywhere on my walks home. A bit unnerving when people are dying in México.

Another principal worry of mine was my friend Margarita and her family, who had returned to México City in January after spending a year working in Seattle. She had sent me a new email in March with their new phone number in the DF house but I had yet to get a hold of them. Increasingly worried, I called them the other day and Diana, her 15 year old daughter picked up. This is a synopsis of the conversation:

Diana: Hello
Maya: Diana!!!!
Diana: Hi Maya, how are you? (Apparently my gringa accent gives me away)
Maya: Oh my gosh, are you ok? Is everyone ok?
Diana: Yeah we are fine.
Maya: Are you sure, everyone is fine??
Diana: Yeah, we are fine, what's up?
Maya: Ummm, I was worried!
Diana: Why?
Maya: The swine flu!
Diana: The what?
Maya: The SWINE FLU!
Diana: Oh, that.

Apparently they weren't really too worried about it, even though everything was shut down, and according to them the subway was practically empty and everyone was walking around in masks. As Mariana, my roommate from Venezuela, put it, "Maya, que nosotros latinos estamos acostumbrados a movidas. Esta gripe no es nada para nosotros." Translation: "We latinos are used to crazy things going down. This flu isn't anything." So I have stopped worrying, and if the flu hits Madrid "a saco" I will deal with it then. No hay que flipar.

Education, or lack thereof

CEIP Pasamonte, the bilingual public elementary school that I work at in the Moratalaz neighborhood of Madrid, does not have document cameras like the Seattle School District. We have one printer for the whole school that rarely works. Our internet connection is spotty. We do not have overhead projectors. We do not even have white boards.

We do, however, use old-school blackboards. The prefix "black" makes me laugh, because they are hardly ever black because no one ever cleans them. And we do not have new erasers, so each time you wipe down the "blackboard" it makes it even more of a mess. Our blackboard in my 3rd grade class is so bad it shakes when you write on it, and it has streaks of green plastic stuff running down it (that chalk can't write on, so it creates a bit of a confusion when we write across it). The state of our chalk supply is also in crisis. Ramón sends kids down to the office to get a box of chalk, "box" being the operative word. The kids return with two pieces of chalk, three if they are lucky.

From this information, one would gather that I work in a poor school that doesn't receive much funding.

So you would be as puzzled as I am to find out that just the other day, a truck load of furniture pulled up outside of CEIP Pasamonte. Good, I thought, maybe they will actually get something that works, like a new chalkboard that isn't about to fall off the wall.

I thought wrong. What they did unload was brand spanking new furniture for the front office. A new workstation for the secretaries. New cabinets for their files. I asked Ramón, what was wrong with their old furniture? His answer-according to the principal was "the office is the first thing parents and community members see when they arrive and we want to give them a good impression".

What did they do with their old furniture? It was moved to the staff room, and was left up for grabs for the teachers for their classrooms. How thoughtful of the principal and the deputy head (or "Devil Woman" as one of my co-worker refers to her).

Just another case of how our incompetent principal puts appearances ahead of education.

More to come, I have only just skimmed the surface.

Toma toma toma, nos vamos para Roma!!!

Tonight, FC Barcelona tied Chelsea in a nerve-wracking down-to-the-wire match, allowing them to advance to the Champion's League finals in Rome on May 27th. And yes, I live in Madrid, but I have been a Barcelona fan ever since I lived in Cádiz from 2003-04. Back then Real Madrid was similar to the NY Yankees, all superstars fighting for attention. Beckam, Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, and Raúl. People tell me I am a Barça just because they are winning, but that is not true. Same with being a New England Patriots fan. I rooted for the Patriots in the 2002 Super Bowl when everyone thought they had no chance in hell of beating the Rams and Vinatieri ended up winning the game for them with a field goal. I have to stay loyal, they won me a bet!

Here is the tying goal by Iniesta that allowed them to advance to the finals (which led to an eruption of screaming in the bar I was at, and a few tables were almost knocked over):

The heat, oh the heat

It is 27 degrees C outside, which is about 80 degrees F. Summer weather in Seattle. Beach weather, in fact. But here in Madrid? Oh no, to madrileños this is nothing. I walked home from school in shorts and flip flops, and the majority of those on the street were wearing long sleeves, jeans, and shoes. Real shoes. Not sandals. Even  though I was wearing a tshirt-blouse and shorts, I was sweating. A lot. 

This means one thing. We haven't seen anything yet. I am scared. I have been told that madrileños don't think it is hot until it reaches 35 degrees or more (95 F).

Fortunately there are public pools in Madrid and I get off work at 1pm in June...

And by the way, Feliz Cinco de Mayo.

Raise your hand if you're foreign

Living in another country obviously makes you hyper aware of cultural differences, but with this usually an open and accepting attitude is necessary so that you don't start to go insane. Not only do I notice big differences between me and the Spaniards that live here, but also with other foreigners, like my roommate. She and I get along superbly, albeit we have had a few rough patches and misunderstandings, but we have always worked them out. In my case, I don't understand why she throws paper in the garbage. In her case, the "if it's yellow let it mellow" rule that I have always followed doesn't fly. But despite these things, I still feel like I do so many things that people here do not understand at all, but I can't really help it, so thus I continue, sticking out like a sore thumb.

A few examples:

1. I use a nylon bag when I go grocery shopping. My favorite grocer, this Moroccan guy down the street, always giggles and says, oh I forgot, you have your "special" bag. Only twice have I received an "oh that's cool, then you don't waste a bag" out of the 100+ times I have used it.

2. I wear sandals when it is hot outside. This is one thing that tips me off (aside from the obvious fair hair and blue eyes) as a foreigner, or "guiri". It can be 25º (78º F) and everyone is still wearing down jackets and scarves. For me, this is Seattle in July weather, so instead of feeling like I will die of heat stroke, I put on a pair of sandals and show off my pale feet.

3. Which leads me to: I wear tshirts inside school even when it's cold outside, because they have the heater on full blast. Everyone comments to me about this. Every day they get on my case about not bundling up. "You got sick last week because you weren't wearing a scarf". Or "the minute the sun comes out all the guiris think it's summer and take their clothes off".

4. Apparently I don't eat correctly. My friend Alena is constantly being badgered by her Spanish roommate about not eating the right things. Alena got sick with a throat infection and was told that she didn't eat enough fruit. Alena mentions that she eats apples, bananas and oranges almost every day. "Well, that isn't the good fruit. You should be eating pears and kiwis."

5. I am not rude enough in public. While walking down the street I am often cut off by other people who have no awareness of personal space. If I need to get around someone I say "excuse me" which no one ever seems to hear. But the minute someone yells at them "let me by!" then they move over. I still can't bring myself to talk that way, even though it is seemingly the norm.

While I am constantly adapting (and keeping my mouth securely shut to prevent myself from opening criticizing things here) I wish that others here would think for a minute about how many people are in this world, and how many different ways there are to do things. There seem to be a lot of people here set in their ways with not much desire to get out and see other places. If I had an EU passport and a "real" job here, ohhh the things I could do...my friend Chio is always traveling, but never leaves Spain. To me that is a shame. Italy is 2 hours away, Germany 3 hours, Portugal 5 hours driving. But it is all about comfort, I guess.

Ma'aselama

Mallorca

Mallorca is gorgeous.

Let me rephrase that. The part of Mallorca that still hasn't been declared a colony of Germany is gorgeous.

Arriving in our neighborhood of S'Arenal (on Platja de Palma) was like arriving in the place where culture goes to die. German bars with schnitzel lined the streets. An old Spanish castle had been gutted to make way for a German bier-garten with stain glass windows depicting men and women in leiderhosen. Needless to say, it was full of sunburned college students drinking pints. Allison and I were spoken to more times in German than in Spanish, and each time had to politely say that we don't speak German. There was even a fake train to drive around all the "guiris", but it didn't go any further than the beach-front promenade.

Leaving "guiri-landia" we rented a car and were able to see pretty much the entire island. The first weekend was spent with my friends Chio and Javi, who were grateful I had a license (they don't know how to drive even though they are both turning 26), and we went to Cabo de Formentor, Puerto de Alcúdia, Puerto de Sóller and Pollença. Driving through the windy roads of the sierra was beautiful, green, and I couldn't stop saying "ay que bonito!" the entire drive.

Chio and Javi took off on Sunday and Allison and I still had five more days to bask in the sun and go to the beach. Or so we thought. A storm blew through for the next few days, and since we had to wait a few more days to rent our car (a Ford Fiesta that we named "Fabián"), we took the bus into Palma, the ritzy capital of the island and province. We found an amazing restaurant in downtown Palma and ordered duck, potatoes a gratin, humus and pita, and goat cheese with peppers. We shared a bottle of red wine and the entire tab came to 34€. We were in food heaven. Me especially after surviving 6 months on bland Spanish food. The restaurant was situated in a small alley across from a church, and while we were eating, a full-blown Semana Santa penitence procession passed by us, complete with KKK hooded worshippers. Good food AND a show, it made up for the lightning and thunder storm the night before (which turned our street into a river).

We moved hotels (and neighborhoods) because the first one had no heat, no hot water, and was a bit sketchy, and found ourselves still in Germany, but on the border of 2nd Germany and the rest of Mallorca, so we took advantage and found our local Spanish cafetería to eat breakfast and drink coffee. We were the only foreigners in there, which of course meant cheaper and better food. No taco flavored pasta like we had a the "Big Kahuna" restaurant nearby.

A few days before we left we were sitting out on a patio café near our hotel and noticed that TVE1 news reporter and camera guy were wandering from restaurant to restaurant asking people if they spoke Spanish. Apparently no one said yes because when they happened upon us, and asked us if we spoke Spanish, they were suprised to find that we did. Then the full-blown interview began, asking me questions about "La Crisis" and the prices of vacations, and flights, and whether or not they were reasonable. My guess is it never aired, but it was amusing nonetheless.

To see more pictures from Mallorca: Maya's Picasa Album

Spain vs. Turkey

Continuing with my tour of Spanish pastimes (as my Spanish friend Laura says, "Maya, you do more Spanish things than I do"), I attended the Spain-Turkey World Cup 2010 prelim game in Bernabéu Stadium. We gathered a group of about 10 of us and started a botellón outside the stadium amidst tens of thousands of red and yellow clad fans. The streets were pure chaos (despite the rain people showed up hours before) and if this was just a prelim game I can't even imagine what a real World Cup match would look like here. The city would probably shut down and everyone would take to the streets.

I spent the evening chanting "Yo soy español español español" along with my friends, and even though it was a fairly uneventful match, Spain came out victorious (2-0) and we were out until 6am celebrating.

Just another night in Madrid.

Portugal

After my trip to Italy I was a bit low on cash, and decided to spend the 4 day weekend in March in Madrid, laying low, and saving money. Then Greg and Laura mentioned they were driving to Lisbon and basically made it super hard to resist. It was a truly relaxing four days and it reminded me of the joys of road trips. No lines at the airport, no smashing everything into a 10 kilo suitcase, no putting all of your liquids into tiny bottles. Just pick up and go.

Portugal was exactly as I remembered it, like Spain, but greener, and the people are definitely more welcoming than in Madrid. You can ask for directions without getting glared at or waved away. The food left a bit to be desired though, as one meal I had consisted of a slab of lamb, white rice and french fries. No sauce. The Portuguese waiter spoke to us in English with a very proper British accent, and then looked at Laura with disgust when she asked for something on the menu "That is not Portuguese you are speaking, that is Spanish."

Driving Laura's car gave us the flexibility of going wherever we wanted without having to consult bus or train schedules. We were able to go see the Cabo da Roca (the Westernmost point of Continental Europe), Cabo da Inferno (a huge rock carved out by the sea), the colorful castle on the hill of Sintra, the Memorial del Descubrimiento in Belém (a huge white monument with all the discoverers, including Columbus), and Lisbon's trolley car and castle.

Although Portugal was lovely, one problem they have is their highway system. Whoever designed it must have attended the architectural design school from hell. At one point on the way to the airport to pick up Sandra, Laura's friend, we took a wrong turn (it was the GPS's fault) and ended up in the sketchiest neighborhood of Lisbon. We spent 45 minutes on a hill overlooking the freeway, but with no way to actually enter the freeway. Finally managing to find the freeway, we think we are home free. Nope. We accidentally get onto a 20 kilometer bridge with no way of turning around. The longest bridge I have ever seen. At the end of it, we think, ok, there must be a turn off ramp in order to turn around. Nope. We have to get onto another highway for a few kilometers before we could turn around to go BACK over the lovely bridge. Needless to say we were about an hour and a half late to pick up Sandra, a trip that was originally 30 minutes from our hostel.

But anyway, it was a great way to spend the weekend, watching Greg and Laura take an infinite amount of pictures on their fancy cameras, teaching Sandra about the joys of cooking with cilantro, and gorging myself on Portuguese pastries.


I have included some pictures of the trip.

1. Graffiti art in Lisbon (at the top)

2. View from the Castelo da Pena in Sintra (above right)

3. Memorial de Descubrimiento in Belém (with the 25 de abril bridge in the background) above far right

4. Waiting for the bus in Sintra (at right)

CAPEA

I was invited to a capea recently and my first thought was, I'm not really a fan of bull fights. After second thought, and Alena insisting that in capeas the bulls don't die, I thought, what the hell, and went. I am never one to shy away from trying something I have never done before (This is how I end up eating cow brains in México or on an island in Belize that is inhabited by a drug cartel). To preface this, a capea is to Spain what a weekend bbq and pickup baseball game is in to us in the States. You get a bunch of people on a greyhound bus and take them outside of the city, start the bbq (grocery store burgers on baguette bread, of course), open the free bar, and let out the bulls. It becomes a free for all of guys showing off their masculinity, but dressed in nice jeans, button-up shirts and loafers. I guess if you get knocked around by the bull you might as well look nice.

After a break of hamburgers and more sangría, Chio and I headed into the ring to check it out. We met Jaime, from Córdoba, who had been in there with the capote (the pink and yellow cape) from the beginning. He taught me how to hold the capote and how you drag it on the ground in front of the bull so he doesn't see your feet. Then they brought the cows out for a second round (since they were tired and were a lot tamer) and I decided to try my hand at it. Being one of the only Americans at the capea (there were five of us out of about 50 people) this brought on a ton of attention from everyone watching and chants of "la americana" followed suit, along with every guy in the ring telling me I have "cojones". In the end, Chio and I stayed there after the bus left to hang out with some of the people we met and for my valiant efforts in the ring they gave me a Spanish flag to take home. All in all it was definitely a cultural experience, and I found myself saying "only in Spain..." more than a few times during the course of the day.

Cinque Terre

This post is extremely outdated...

Last month Emily came to visit (yay!) and we made a 4 day trip into Cinque Terre, the five UNESCO-protected villages lining the Italian coast. What seemed like a quick trip into Italy ended up being quite the opposite. Getting to Vernazza, the town we stayed in, involved every mode of transportation except for maybe a mule...Leaving Madrid at 7am we took a subway, airplane, shuttle bus, and two trains, arriving at 9pm in Vernazza. I guess the time we arrived is a bit deceptive, since we had somewhat of a mishap in Génova. Trains in Italy are very cheap and usually pretty efficient, but are not well-marked at all. And apparently the board that lists all the train platforms don't always work very well. So instead of heading on a train to Vernazza from Génova, we boarded a train that was going in the opposite direction. We didn't notice this until I asked the woman next to me (I asked in a mix of Italian and Spanish) if we were heading to Vernazza, and she looks at me, puzzled, and shakes her head. Then she turns to another group of passengers and they all shake their heads, and soon enough the entire train car knows that the two American girls got on the wrong train. Fortunately, everyone on the train was extremely helpful, and the woman got off the train with us at the next stop and helped us get on the train going back to Génova. She explained everything to the train conductor, as well as everyone in the train, and we ended up not having to pay. This was with her speaking not a word of English, and me miming works or mixing Spanish with the 5 words I knew in Italian.

It was worth it though, as Vernazza ended up being gorgeous and the food amazing. We gorged ourselves on pesto genovese (since Genova is so close) with pasta shaped like a twisted toothpicks, grilled mozzarella and tomato panini, lots of gelato, limoncello, and the best tiramisú I have ever had. I think I gained about 5 kilos that weekend alone.

Our trip home was almost as eventful as our trip there. We ended up in the Milan airport waiting for our flight, but accidentally wrote down the wrong time. Thinking our flight was at 3pm we got to the airport at noon with plenty of time to spare. We get up to the counter to check in, and they send us away, we are too early. We come back again in an hour, and they look at us again, and say, you are too early. We look at the flight on the screen. Our plane leaves at 5:30pm. We have over 3 hours to kill at the airport. For some reason I always end up back in Milan, my least favorite city in Europe. But the important thing is, we made it (on a plane full of annoying Italian high school students heading to Madrid for the weekend). After leaving Vernazza at 6am we arrived back in Madrid at 10pm.

Aside from being able to take a break from the smog in Madrid and breathe fresh sea air, it was also nice to visit a place where people are super friendly and with chefs who know that cooking involves more than just frying something in olive oil or cooking it to death in tons of garlic. Can't wait to go back this summer.