my 5 day weekend

This weekend marked two very important, and very distinct, holidays in Spain- December 6th The Day of the Constitution and December 8th The Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Día de la Constitución celebrates the day in 1978 that Spain became a democracy and defined the new/current constitution of Spain after Franco’s dictatorship. La Inmaculada Concepción is based on the Catholic dogma that states that while becoming pregnant the Virgin Mary did not suffer the “original sin” as she was “filled by god” and as such the conception was “immaculate”. Either way, both national celebrations have one very common denominator which I was happy to take part in: no work! And true to Spanish style the two days separating the holidays are also vacation days…so if you are like me and don’t work on Fridays this means you had a 5 day weekend followed by 2 days of work this next week! Taking advantage of the 5 day puente (bridge), I took my first road trip of the school year with my jerezian friends up north to visit the cities of Cáceres, Salamanca, Zamora and Miranda do Douro (Portugal), and Mérida, spending 1 day in each city.

Entrance into the ciudad antigua in Caceres

Entering through the arch into the old city of Cáceres is like stepping into a purely medieval city that has resisted all signs of modernity. It was built between the 14th and 15th centuries by noble and royal families who wanted to show off their wealth and power by building lavish palaces. It is surrounded entirely by the old wall that protected the city and it transports you back centuries. Within the wall is a convent where cloistered nuns (they can’t be seen by people from outside) sell delicious homemade treats. I bought a box of what they call bocaditos de almendra (little bites of almond), which are like miniature almond paste cupcakes, with the intention of sending them home in a holiday package…but we’ll see if any actually make it home for the holidays.


On top of the cathedral in Salamanca


Salamanca's Plaza Mayor

Salamanca is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe, established in 1218, as well as one of Eruope’s oldest libraries, and is compared to the Emerald City of Oz for its golden buildings that glow in the sunshine. In the façade of the old university building you are supposed to look for a tiny frog sitting on top of a skull. If you find it without help it will bring you good luck. (I mostly found it on my own…I couldn’t help it that all the other tourists were pointing right at it.) And because of Salamanca’s student atmosphere you can find bars that give you a free tapa when you order a drink. At one such bar I tried for the first time cochinillo, a baby piglet cooked in the oven, cut into pieces and then deep fried, which although hard to think about, was actually quite tasty.

Portuguese bank of the Duoro River

From Salamanca we crossed into Portugal to a small town called Miranda do Douro and the Río Douro which creates the border between Spain and Portugal. We took a boat down river for an environmental/biological tour of the cliffs, and were able to see the different species that inhabit the area. Back in Spain we headed to Zamora, a small town of 70,000 residents, over 20 churches, and a beautifully restored castle. In Zamora I tried my first feo (translation: ugly) a baked sweet made with almonds, sugar, and eggs, which proved to be just as delicious as I expected it to be.

Columns behind the stage of the Roman theater

Our last stop in Mérida was a quick one as we were all anxious to get home and get out of the car. Mérida as a city is not very beautiful, but is home to a great quantity of Roman ruins. In 26 BC, as a reward for serving the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar allowed a group of veterans to found a new city at the banks of the Río Guadiana, present day Mérida. Here we toured the theater and the amphitheater and a restored home with incredibly preserved and detailed mosaics.
To finish up the holiday, this morning I took a stroll through the old Jewish quarters here in Córdoba. In the judería I came across the only synagogue left in all of Andalucía (1 of only 3 synagogues left in Spain, the other two in Toledo) after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. The synagogue was built in 1315 and is where the famous philosopher Maimonides once prayed. The building, although in the process of restoration, is small and charming, adorned with beautiful Arabic patterns and Hebrew inscriptions; a perfectly tranquil place to visit at the end of a busy weekend of travel and movement

I have to work on thanksgiving!

These past few weeks in Córdoba have gone pretty well and I am settling into life again in Andalucia. I have been keeping busy by going to school, tutoring, and the gym, observing and interacting with my roommates and occasionally going out with friends on the weekend. Although I have been here for 6 weeks now, this past one was full of a lot of firsts. Including…

Going to my very first Spanish demonstration with my roommates and their friends. The demonstration was against violence against women and the machismo that underlies Spanish (and other Latin) culture.

First English conversation class with a neurologist who pays me 12 Euros/hour to tell me the differences between the Spanish and US health systems.

My first late night out; I got home at 4am. This is nothing if you are Spanish, but now that I am 24 (eek!) I figure 4 in the morning isn’t too shabby.

Attending my first ever Step Aerobic class. Not only at my new gym, but ever! It was pretty hilarious because the teacher was doing a really difficult routine and I had no idea how to follow. I made a complete fool of myself but had fun and made a French friend.

The realization that my ½ hour walk to school in the morning would not be the quiet, meditative, stroll I had once hoped it to be. The closest thing I can compare it to is trying to beat a level of a video game like Super Mario Bros, but not nearly as fun. To beat the level and arrive to school on time, or at all, I have to ‘overcome’ 3-5 year old Spanish children with rolley backpacks linked hand-in-hand to siblings and parents on their way to school, stern faced Spanish women and their pointy toed high heeled boots, dog poop on the sidewalk (where there is sidewalk…about 1 foot wide), delivery trucks (like a UPS truck) driving on a road that was made to accommodate the passage of two horses, high school students on bikes playing their music out loud on their cell phone (can be compared to the 80s when people put boom boxes on their shoulders and allowed/forced everyone to listen to their music) and your everyday, regular car commuter traffic. All this on one street! So, how do I beat this level with all the challenges and opponents it presents? Usually by listening to music on my iPod and laughing at the whole chaotic mess and pretending I am apart from it, all the while walking quickly in my flat, comfortable shoes, and keeping my vision fixed ahead for any future obstacles. I have also found that what NOT to do and what DOES NOT help is to think, “there is a better way.” …(I have found this to be an unhelpful, but natural, thought in many of my experiences in Spain).

My first fall/winter cold. Mostly a cough but still annoying when you have to talk over 30 Spanish teenagers who come from a culture where interrupting is not seen as rude.

my favorite plaza

This Saturday I went to eat breakfast in the little bar at my favorite plaza, Plz. Jeronimo Paez. It is right in the middle of the old Jewish quarters but hidden from the touristy area of the mezquita. Here are some pics.

After breakfast I went to the Archeological Museum of Cordoba. It has some cool artifacts from the Roman Empire with descriptions of where they were found in the city. It also has a collection of pottery from the medieval period when Cordoba was the capital of al-Andalus.

This is a statue of Aphrodite (Roman Venus), goddess of love, desire, beauty, and fertility, kneeling over a swan and perhaps looking at her reflection in a pond. (Interesting the standards of beauty in Roman times and now.)

Cordoba, the city with many faiths

Check out this BBC article about Cordoba. Interesting view on the mix of cultures in the past and present.

view my fotos!!

Today I created a site where I can upload my photos and give you access to them. The link is posted below and every time I add more new photos I will put the link in this blog.

http://myyearinphotos.shutterfly.com/

The current album, titled Cordoba, shows photos I took this past weekend. They are taken in Cordoba's famous patios, Los Patios Cordobeses. In May there is a two-week competition in which patios are opened to the public and which culminates with the local government (I think) awarding a prize for the most beautiful patio. Despite the geraniums not being in bloom right now the patios are still gorgeous, so I am looking forward to May when everything is in bloom.

typical espanish

Walking through the streets of Spain it is pretty typical to see an older woman wearing a bath robe and slippers and either sweeping or mopping the street/sidewalk. Please refer to the picture below to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. I often ask myself why one might do this, but I have yet to ask anyone Spanish. Maybe this can be one of the topics I bring up in the "differences between US (or you-sah (USA) as my students would say) and Spanish cultures" class...


Also funny is when my students see me outside of school and say/shout across the street, "Hello! I'm fine and you?".

Here is the picture of the tortillas I mentioned a few days ago. It might be hard to see how big they are without a reference, but you can use the wine bottles in the foreground to give you an idea. I went back today and the bartender said they weigh approximately 5 kilos, 11 pounds.

a typical monday

Well, not really. But I do admit that these Andaluces have a lot of Dias de Fiesta... translation: we all get the day off of work. So yesterday on my day off I went to a famous bar near the Mezquita to try their tortilla de patata and a cold cerveza. The tortillas they serve (hopefully I will get a picture the next time I go, but they are quite elusive and difficult to capture on camera) are about 6 or 7 inches tall with an 8 or 9 inch diameter. If you have ever tried to make a tortilla then you know that to successfully make one that is this humongous takes real skill and experience.

And the taste? Exquisite. Those of you who can come and visit I promise to take you here (or you can take me here!).

xoxo

a walk through my neighborhood

View of the Mezquita minaret from Calle de Los Flores.




Minaret and detailing on the outside of the mezquita.


Plaza de Las Tendillas- I live directly behind the white building.

my first two weeks

Córdoba- My new city has so far been pretty great. I am not settled in yet and havn’t really had enough time to explore the area, but the first impression is a good one. It was once the largest city in Western Europe and the capital of the Moorish Empire. So there is a wonderful mix of Roman, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian origins and history . People still use Córdoba as an example of a city where Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people lived together in peace. It also has one of Spain’s oldest Jewish quarters, which is just a tangled mess of beautiful (and disorienting!!) streets that wind around and lose you in their corners and hidden patios.
Apartment- I found one! It took some work but after a week in a hostel I found an apartment right in the City Center. You can google map Plaza de Las Tendillas and that is right where I am. The apartment is a typical Spanish piso, much larger than where I lived in Alcala and more modern than my garden room in Jerez and the location is great. Here, I even have an oven! I have three official Spanish roomies (one of which is not yet living here) and two unnoficial roomies who don’t live here but are here more than I am. So far everything has been going well with them…we have our obvious differences but I think living with them for 8 months is something I can probably survive. My internet currently doesn’t work through my own computer and my roomie lent me hers to use in the mean time while the other roomie dedicates his time to to determining how to fix the internet problem and it seems to have broken the ice. One problem is they both smoke, as do the unofficial roommates, and three of them smoke pot ALL the time. So it get a bit smelly in here with all that smoke! I just keep my door shut and the window open and look at it as a character building experience. Tonight I was going to make brownies for our school pot luck tomorrow. Unfortunately, the smokey smokersons had already planned on making pot-brownies (what are the chances?!?) so I may try to stay away from the kitchen…it would be an unfortunate mishap should my brownies for school and their brownies get mixed up before the morning.

Here is my address:
Plaza Mármol de Bañuelos No. 4, 2-1
14002 Córdoba
España

School- My school, Grupo Cántico, is in the northern part of the city and about a 30 minute walk from my apartment. It is not quite as ‘endearing’ as my school in Jerez, but it is certainly much more organized and they know how to utilize us language assistants in a productive way. This year I have English classes, Music, Technology, and IT. Music is really fun because I get to watch my students sing in English and all the materials for the bilingual classes are already prepared. Technology and IT are also fun because the students enjoy the material and are interested in hearing what I have to say. English class, like last year, is the most difficult. It is tricky to come up with interesting topics for conversation when the students have such a basic level of English. This week Lomi, the other assistant, and I tried to teach about Halloween and got to play Michael Jackson’s Thriller in class. I don’t think they understood any of the lyrics, which I’ll admit are quite difficult, but at least they enjoyed the video and the dancing. One of my students, who the teacher says has a crush on me, also drew me a really detailed drawing of a jack ‘o lantern.
This weekend I am heading north to Alcalá to visit my friends and Luisi. I am excited to see them and we are going to have a Halloween party so I will feel right at home. Monday I already have a day off of work (ah, I love these andalucians and their never ending fiestas!) so I hope to explore more of the city and eat a tapa or two in the 80 degree weather. Kisses.

Hello!

Welcome to my new and updated online journal and thank you for your support! After working hard all afternoon to get 17 pounds of books packed away, I am finally set to head back to Spain for another 8 months. I leave Friday morning and will arrive at my new home city of Cordoba on Saturday afternoon. My first mission will be taking a long siesta followed by an intensive apartment search. Wish me luck and I promise to send my new address as soon as I have one.

Ciao!