El Pueblo

Last weekend I went to “el pueblo” with my family, which means the village. Leon is a city, albeit not a huge one, but in the countryside there are a lot of small agriculturally- or tourism-based villages. Many people in Leon have family or family roots in a village, and although my family isn't from around here, they bought a house in “Lagunas de Somoza” 6 years ago. They haven’t rebuilt it yet and my sisters, who are less than fond of the boring, small-town life, explained to me in no uncertain terms, that it was a “pile of rocks on top of each other!!!!!!” They think they’ll fix it up at some point, presumably when the economy is better… We ate a family-style meal in a (the only?) restaurant with 20 other people who live there or also come for weekends, and had a yummy (if not somewhat fatty/bone-y) paella and I’m pleased at how much I was able to understand (when I tried to pay attention…). Extrovert Alex made an appearance here again which helps with conversation. We also spent some time in the house of some friends and it was a charming vacation home. I want to live there! Later, my mom and I walked around around the town and up the hill next to the town, where there's a little church at the top. Unfortunately it was totally cloudy, but in theory, there's a gorgeous giant mountain in the distance. Great day overall :)

Aprovechar

Life here has been pretty quiet; not too much school and not too much adventuring, but I’m enjoying it. I think I spent 6 hours yesterday and 4 today (until I finished) reading The Girl Who Played with Fire, which was just as satisfying as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although the ending was more of a cliff-hanger and I can’t wait to read the third! Fortunately, KCLS has an app for free e-books that can be checked out, my host dad has an iPad, and I was able to take advantage (aprovechar, in Spanish—it’s a popular word here) of both of those!

A few other Spanish vocabulary thoughts, if you are interested:

-yuxtaponer means to juxtapose. This is already a pretty satisfying verb, but when you conjugate it, you can get things like yuxtapusieramos, which is even better

-rehuir means to shy away from. I like how four words are wrapped up in one.

-to seek doesn’t have a Spanish equivalent, just buscar, which means to look/search for. Not quite the same….

And some cultural observations, which I’ve been saving on a post-it, and as I haven’t written in quite some time, it seems appropriate to fill you in!

--The weekday schedule here is quite different from that in the US. My host dad, for example, who is an engineer, seems to go to work around 9am, come home at 2:30 for lunch, hang out/nap/study (since he’s also going back to college for law), leave at 4:30, and come back at 10 pm (although he does stay later in the office than his colleagues, who I believe leave closer to 8). Shops here are open from 9 or 10 am to about 2pm, and then reopen from 5-10pm or so. Doing business or working in the evening is totally normal: when our refridgerator broke, the repairman came at 8pm, and when there were a few repairs to be done around the house and a handyman came briefly to take a look at what needed to be done…at 9:30pm!  Of course, I don’t think you’d ever be able to get anyone to come at 3pm. I’m not sure I would like this schedule if it became my real life, because it obviously would severely limits evening activities. But, I don’t know if people really have evening activities… My host sisters are busy, but they have all of their classes/lessons in the afternoon and are done by 7, and my parents and other working folks that I’ve talked to don’t have hobbies that the do in the evenings. However, the long and relaxed lunch certainly encourages spending time with family, which I do really like. We often spend an hour eating and talking, and even if someone is “in a hurry,” they’re around for a good 30 minutes or more. That’s pretty novel to me; if I am in a hurry (think of the last two years of my life), I eat something that’s half-microwaved while standing up in my kitchen and review some homework assignment or making plans at the same time. Needless to say, I like this more. Plus I never have to cook!

My little sister normally comes home for lunch, but sometimes she eats in the cafeteria at school if she has an afternoon activity and my mom doesn’t want to walk there to pick her up and then walk back to take her back to school, and cook lunch. Can’t imagine why!! The cafeteria meals cost EIGHT euros, which today is $10.25!! When I found this out, I a) was shocked, and b) thought back to a conversation we had in school a few weeks ago, when my professor said that it’s not common for students to bring their own lunch to school, but it’s become more common with the crisis. But, again because of the crisis, schools sometimes charge those students because they’re still eating in the cafeteria, requiring supervision, etc!! These are often the kids who live too far away to have time to go home for lunch, and if they are poor and can’t afford to pay for eating at school, they don’t go. My professor didn’t have numbers to quantify this trend, but it’s become more of an issue in Spain (as you can imagine; remember, unemployment is at 25 %!)

--A different topic entirely: Spain doesn’t have the death penalty or life sentences! A different professor said that none of (Western?) Europe does, although I haven’t taken the time to verify that, so please correct me if I’m wrong. Here, they were both eliminated with the Constitution of 1978 (when Franco’s dictatorship ended and Spain chose to become a democracy, more or less… Hard to believe that change happened within my host parents’ lifetime!)

It wouldn't be a good blog post without some photos... So, last weekend I went on a day trip to Gijon with my host parents, my littler sister Esperanza, my brother Guillermo, and my (American) friend Olivia. It’s a neat city on the coast, but unfortunately the weather was atrocious and we spent as much time indoors at cafes and restaurants as we did outside. But, we did get some entertaining pictures! (Note the hair...) It was, as usual, fantastic to spend the day with them: educational and fun at the same time. We went to some museums and cafes that I probably too certainly wouldn't have found by myself, and I got to practice a lot more Spanish that I do when I travel with my American friends.

Also, I leave Leon in under a month... I don't think my brain can comprehend that fact! 

Some Short Stories

Haircut and Conversation

I mentioned to my host sister the other day that I wanted to get my hair trimmed, and my host mom said she'd make me an appointment at her hairdresser. I don't think I've ever been to anywhere nicer than MasterCuts, but I might be willing to pay more to have today's experience and a much better hair cut again in the future. An assistant did the hair washing (I could have managed a bit more head massage!) and drying at the end (what a luxury!) and then the hair stylist did the actual cutting. Extroverted Alex made a rare appearance and I was particularly willing to share stories about my experiences here. It was a very pleasant conversation and I think I would go back even if I didn't like my haircut, although luckily I do. The stylist has been cutting my host mom and daughter's hair for years so he knows the family and was able to relate to some of the stories. And of course he read the article in the newspaper the other day with my misquote! I made it very clear that is not what I said or meant! I also had a long conversation about National Parks in the US with the assistant, and she I think she knew more about them than most Americans do! She did pronounce Brice as "BREE-say" though so it took a minute for us to connect on that one. Another superlative: the most meticulous job anyone has ever done blow drying my hair. For the first time in almost two months, my hair feels wonderfully soft... I just wish my straightener worked here so I could have that more often! And I'm very proud to say I didn't have trouble hearing her over the hair dryer, which made me nervous when she started. Drowned-out Spanish is not easy to understand. The stylist came back to look at my hair once she was done drying (I could see in the mirror that he was on Facebook while waiting; either it was a very slow night or they're trying hard not to contribute to the 25% (!!!) unemployment here) and he insisted that I come back and he'd trim the front layers a little more if I decided I wanted them shorter. I was even able to use one of those annoying 50 euro bills that ATMs always give you, even though they're much to large to be useful... Well, for coffee, which is all I normally buy, at least, and I got a tiny bit of change back, which will be useful for coffee.

Host Family and Essay

Great day with them. My host brother Guillermo is home for the weekend from Madrid since today is a holiday there and they don't have school, so conversation at lunch was a bit faster paced but more animated. All the boys (the two other sons also) are hard to understand because I'm not as accustomed to their speech, but I'm learning. I found out that they don't have prom or homecoming here at all, but they have the impression that dances are super important in schools in the US because they're always in the movies. I had an essay for my literature class due at 5 pm which needed some final editing, but I was enjoying myself a lot so I didn't rush away from the table even though I probably should have. I didn't come to Spain to analyze poetry, though; I came to met people and improve my Spanish! Eventually we finished and I conveniently cornered Guillermo into proofreading my essay. Some sentences didn't make a ton of sense to him because they were written in English in my head and then translated verbatim to Spanish and therefore had a distinct American sound  (for example, I use a ton of gerunds in my writing, while Spanish prefers the infinitive, but they're not exactly interchangeable so I had to go with the former!). Still, I think for the most part it made sense and he caught a bunch of gender/number agreement errors and missing accents... Both so easy to miss for me! And he helped me create a very nice subjunctive sentence--satisfying since subjunctive is the worst!! I turned in my essay at 4:58 (Capstone, anyone?) and then we hung out in a companionable I'm-doing-my-own-stuff-on-the-computer sort of way. I updated my roster for fantasy football the week and was looking up the words to ask him if there was a similar fantasy futbol concept in Spain when I turned to look at his screen and that's exactly what he was doing! The coincidence made me laugh. ESPN really has a great interface compared to the one he was using though.... and luckily, since without their point predictions, I'd really be at a loss.

A brief background to the rest of the story...When we got here in September, the program coordinator told us that if we wanted, he could help us find places to volunteer. A number of people expressed interest, and the opportunity he suggested was teaching English to interested parties, but for pay, which didn't really seem like volunteering. My host dad tried to explain the idea to me and it boiled down to the fact that you're volunteering (willing to/choosing to spend time) to teach other people, but that doesn't mean you're making a donation. Gradually, families started contacting him that they wanted an American to come talk to their kids for authentic English practice. After my host mom found out that her friend had asked for someone but my name didn't get picked out of the hat, she said I should have a weekly "conversación" with my sisters. We spent an hour talking in English today and it was such an enjoyable change because for once I didn't have to struggle to communicate with them! I'd consider talking in English to them more often if I want to tell them something and I just can't find the words in Spanish except I'm sure my host dad would get mad at me! "You came here to learn Spanish!" I got to ask them lots of questions about school and their family (these seemed like subjects for which Esperanza had sufficient vocab) and I feel like their lives make so much more sense to me now... Very beneficial for all of us!

I'm Famous!

At least in Leon... Yesterday, as we were about to leave class, Santos, our program coordinator, came in and told us to hang out for a bit since a journalist and photographer were there to interview us about the election. We proceeded to attempt to explain in Spanish our political views, charicteristics of America and our impressions of politics in Spain while the photographer bounced around taking lots of pictures. Today was on the front page, along with an impressively-misquoted article. I'm not sure if that's due to him not being able to understand what we were saying so he filled in the gaps or him just making things up. Either way, according to the article, I stated that until now, health insurance has covered 100% of US citizens, but if the government changes, many people won't be able to face the costs that come from the doctors. I think. I was going to translate it verbatum, but I actually didn't know two words in my "own" sentence so I had to use a dictionary and guess on the meanings!

If you are curious, you can take a look at the main article, a short article with an entertaining photo, or another short article.

In other news: You know that great feeling you get when you eliminate a lot of clutter from your life? It turns out that's almost applicable to the situation where you delete everything off your computer because refuses to boot up and there seems to be no possible solution! Now my Desktop, My Documents, and Downloads are all so clean. And, I even learned some helpful tricks and information about the inner workings of my computer. As it is only 2 months old, I didn't have anything irreplaceable so it's really just time I need to put into re-downloading...Should have brought that backup hard drive with me after all. Also I have an essay due Friday, so there won't be any photos for a little while. I went on a great trip last weekend, though, so when I do get some photos up, they'll be worth the wait!

School-sponsored alcohol consumption??

Well I haven't been very good about blogging lately... I'll consider trying to improve though :)

This weekend we went on another excursion, which unfortunately started at 7:15 in the morning... I had a nice nap on the bus (I really need to buy one of those neck pillows for all these trips!) and we visited Burgos,  a little town which which was extremely pleasant despite the rather unfortunate (cold, wet, and windy) weather. 

Leon and Burgos both have cathedrals and they both want the reputation of having the better one. They're quite impressive, but have different feels; the Burgos Cathedral is probably more impressive from the outside, and much lighter (although also more museum-touristy and less like a functioning church) on the inside.

The ceilings in old buildings here are always incredible. 

We had a little bit of time to walk around before we headed to the next destination, so I found what I assume to be the Main Plaza. The picture doesn't quite capture the freezing wind (luckily I was all bundled up! Can't say the same for everyone else...)

Here's a perfect example of the fashionable children here... These girls (there was a third one, but she didn't make the picture) are wearing boots that cost $100 and have adorable matching outfits!

Our next stop was a monastery in a different town. It would be a really cool site regardless, but it also happens to be the site of the first written Spanish, ever. A lot of people in the group were kind of over visiting religious sites, but I really enjoyed it. It was a very well-preserved set of buildings and we had a tour guide who was quite easy to understand. I will, however, reiterate my dislike for going on tours in Spanish... It's hard enough for me to learn and remember things when I just hear them in English, and when I have to spend all my brainpower translating from a different language, not much stays in my head... At least I have a lot of photos! A few of my favorites:

An organ with faces!

A room where monks would store their normal clothes when they were wearing special clothes, I think. It was robbed by someone and they took most of the furniture and items inside, but not the tables because they literally weigh a ton each!

The books which contained the music/words of the hymns which the monks sang during mass. They're each about 3 feet tall, so they could be seen by the whole choir. The have I believe about 80 pages, which aren't paper; they're lamb-skins... At a different church, we learned that the most valuable kind was from unborn lambs, since they had the least hair... And those are the ancestors of some of the leading critics of abortion today! The books are stored in this cabinet that has a special kind of stone underneath to limit humidity and there's a hole in the end of the wall so that cats could get in and eat the rats, which were the biggest threat to the books. 

Our last stop of the day was a winery in a region called La Rioja. This tour guide talked way too fast, but I could understand a decent amount of what he explained because he would periodically realize we were confused and then repeat things. We tried a couple kinds of wine (all red, unfortunately, although they were good as far as red wine goes) and learned about antiquated and modern methods of making wine.

I liked the vineyard best because the plants had beautiful fall colors, unlike the part of the tour where we walked through what I would probably call a dungeon, where they used to make the wine because the temperature/humidity was constant. It was kind of weird walking outside in a field with a glass of wine though... (They gave us the glass to keep, along with that sweet red pouch I have around my neck, and some crackers to cleanse the palate. Also, note all my warm layers! They are all new... I was explaining to my host brother (who's in town for the weekend) what I have bought since coming here, and I realized I got that coat, a fleece, those boots, that sweater and two others, and three scarves. Bring it on, winter.