I'm a few days late: pardon me this lapse. Just wanted to wish any and all readers a hale & hearty "Happy Thanksgiving!" I certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year: an excellent group of new friends, a supportive/rad work environment at Colegio Sagrada Familia, 500+ goofy and (mostly) charming students, a good current "quarter" of Masters classes, the opportunity to live in Spain for this year, my family, all of my good friends back home, Willamette Cycling, Emily (to family/home friends/cycling team/Emily: I miss you!!), my health, all the things - good and bad - that have gone into making my life what it's been so far, etc. etc. etc. Plenty to give thanks for!
I hope your holiday is great, however you end up spending it. And, of course, I hope that Thanksgiving can be (for all of us) a reminder to be thankful every day, not just once a year.
Take care,
-Dave
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
A gold mine
All you David Foster Wallace fans out there - I'm assuming there are a lot of you - should go immediately to http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/uncollected-dfw.html, a pretty comprehensive archive of "Uncollected DFW." It's fantastic; tons of really obscure articles/essays/excerpts available for download in PDF format.
In other news, amazon.com has made The Pale King available for pre-order. The unfinished novel will be out on April 15th ('11) - yes, tax day - and it apparently details the trials of IRS agents working in an atmosphere of crushing boredom. Like DFW's Kenyon College Commencement Address (2005), it will advance the idea that "mindfulness" - concentration on, immersion in, and acceptance of the present moment - transforms even the most boring, meaningless existence into something beautiful. The cover art is by DFW's widow, Karen Green.
The really sad irony here is that this is the book that in some sense killed DFW: struggling to move forward with the massive project - the book that would do away with his baroque, pomo past and instead handle universal issues in spare prose - he began to suspect that his antidepressant (Nardil) was dulling his mental firepower. He stopped taking it in 2007, jumpstarting the final downward spiral that would result in his suicide on September 12th, 2008. The New Yorker writes that "In his final hours, he had tidied up the manuscript so that his wife could find it. Below it, around it, inside his two computers, on old floppy disks in his drawers were hundreds of other pages—drafts, character sketches, notes to himself, fragments that had evaded his attempt to integrate them into the novel. This [The Pale King] was his effort to show the world what it was to be 'a fucking human being.'" (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?currentPage=13)
So the book's (pre) availability is bittersweet. Part of me can't wait to get my hands on it in April; part of me is already dreading reaching that final page.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Update #5 from Madrid!
It’s been a long time since I’ve shared any properly journal-type stuff with you guys. A month? I think so... At any rate, owing to the volume of material to cover, we’ll be making use of bullet points today. These are the highlights of the last month.
-The four-day “Puente” weekend, which was just 100% fun. It began with a “Pinchistes” party at Rodrigo’s (another teacher’s) apartment: combining “pinchos” (snacks) and “chistes” (jokes) in one event, it was awesome. Fascinating people there, including a professional magician and a film critic for “El Mundo.” Get-togethers like that are by far the best way to practice Spanish, because you are immersed in it completely and you are finally comfortable and relaxed enough to speak without embarrassment. After “Pinchistes” Friday night, I headed up to the coast town of San Sebastian with partners in crime Eric, Sydney and Kelly for an unforgettable weekend. Our hostel – the “Ocean View;” highly recommended – was filled with all the best people in the world, including a rude surf crew of Aussies and a lot of other internationals. We stayed there only three nights, but we left with a brand new family. Impact. San Sebastian is really beautiful, by the way: after months (OK, weeks) in land-locked Madrid, it was an incredible relief to breath ocean air again. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. We also spent a day in Bilbao, but aside from the (very impressive) Guggenheim, Bilbao lacks S. Sebastian’s charm – but what it lacks in charm, it makes up for in dark-grey industrial-type buildings.
-Teaching Onion articles in class. I only tried this with a few classes (of 1° Bachillerato, aka 17 yr olds), but it ended up pretty much working. We talked about Obama’s Hillbilly Half-Brother Threatening To Derail Campaign and Republicans, Leukemia Team Up To Repeal Health Care Law, both of which texts are rich in “teachable” elements: regional stereotypes, dominant US political parties, the self-aggrandizing rhetoric of politics, etc. I don’t think the kids enjoyed the articles as much as I did, but it’s a start.
-A calligraphy exhibition/lecture at the European Institute of Design, with Rodrigo and Jose María (another teacher at SAFA). It turned out to be really interesting: although the speaker made a quip about “calligraphy and vanguardism having nothing in common,” a lot of the ideas she brought up sounded genuinely vanguard-ish (or, mejor dicho, so old-fashioned that they’re new again): e.g. ideograms pointing straight to concepts & and the way that they’re painted always informing their meaning, so that “Father” or “Love” – universal concepts – are never alike in any two paintings (maybe texts is a better word here.) It was fascinating to learn more about a linguistic tradition that was getting along just fine without Saussure, Derrida et al. From there we headed to a few bars in the Salamanca neighborhood: there was a tapas (small-plates) competition going on between bars in the area and Rodrigo knew the bar owner’s daughter, so we took advantage of tapas both abundant and delicious. Also learned that Jose María had played futbol against one Javier Bardem for years when they were younger, pre-fame.
-The next weekend after that – Laura and Kristin took me and Neal to a fantastic hole-in-the-wall place where an enormous beer and as much castellaño food as one can eat end up costing only 4euros. Incredible! This also marked a milestone: the first time a native madrileño asked me (w/o discernible irony) if I was Spanish. Admittedly, I had spoken only a few sentences up until this point, but it felt awesome to not stand out for once.
- A big art history test and an important presentation in “Techniques of Writing,” both of which went well. Although I used to resent the art history class for the sheer volume of material covered, I’ve since changed my mind: with the first big test out of the way and its content memorized, it turns out to be a lot of fun to be able to walk around Madrid and identify architectural elements, their styles, centuries, etc. Good stuff. “Well I’ll be damned, would you look at that! ... Even more arcos apuntados!”
- Also good stuff: the discovery of “La Casa Encendida,” Caja Madrid’s (a bank’s) social project. It’s a combination library/art gallery/movie theatre/rooftop garden, all with free wifi! They really try hard to project a vanguard-ish vibe there, so it tends to draw a hip young crowd… which is fine by me. New favorite place to study for sure.
- The additional discovery of Bus #32, which goes straight from the Atocha train station to SAFA in only half an hour. I can’t tell you how much nicer the bus is than the metro: instead of making two transfers every commute, suffering the constant invasion of your personal space by strangers and feeling in a huge hurry the entire time, we now get on the bus, sit down (there’s room to sit down!!), and relax all the way to work. It feels so decadent.
- The beginning of “private lessons” with Jose Luís and Antonio, more fellow teachers at SAFA – “lessons” which will consist of getting coffee Friday mornings and chatting. (The first “lesson” reinforced my growing suspicion that I may be happier teaching students older than 18… but don’t tell anyone.)
- A glorious visit from Daniel “Keo” Keough, part of that rowdy crew of Australians from S. Sebastian. Keo’s been here all weekend long, which is a huge treat. Also glorious was the Halloween party that Kristin and Laura threw Sat. night: need I even say that, once again, I went dressed as a pumpkin? It’s refreshing to learn that - with minimal gumshoe work - one can find a flattering, masculine & altogether dapper pumpkin suit in Madrid.
- A visit to the “Rastro” public market yesterday, which was just incredibly huge and overwhelming. This market stretches as far as the eye can see in several directions, with vendors aggressively “repping” their wares as you walk by. The major downside was the (presumed) theft of Kelly’s wallet at some point during the visit, the resulting stress of which theft I can only imagine. Fingers crossed for it to turn up at the police station or something.
- Final highlight – an exploration of several neighborhoods last night with Rodrigo, which included: “txocolina” wine at a Northern-style café; drinks at a cueva or “cave” bar in La Latina (so named - cueva, I mean - for its low ceilings, intimate mood and meandering floorplan); an ad hoc architectural-highlights tour of the surrounding neighborhoods; tapas and drinks near the Plaza Mayor; oysters from the historic market (delicious); an untrustworthy dish purchased near Sol that Rodrigo later revealed to be pan-fried lamb intestines; and finally a local dessert wine “on the house” from our stern-faced (yet big-hearted) bartender. An outstanding evening: every quintessentially Spanish meal I eat takes me one step closer to the personal goal of “Bajo, Moreno y Gordo” (“Short, Dark-Haired & Plump”) that I have set for myself for this year.
And Finally, A Postscript That Journalistic Integrity Demands That I Add
I have earned (the hard way) a lesson all too obvious in retrospect: that eating a plate of pan-fried lamb intestines will - as if acting out the lamb’s posthumous revenge on the equivalent human anatomy - savage your GI tract within one day. That is, the price of pan-friend lamb intestines is measured not only in euros* but in the shame/discomfort of digesting them. And the subsequent shame associated with blogging about it.**
* (3 euros)
** (if any)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Madrid update #4
Abstract for the "tl;dr" crowd (here looking at you, Stephen Moore):
Butane runs out, is restored; adventures in student teaching and classroom management; hike near Alcalá de Henares; talent-show-esque benefit concert falsely billed as "flamenco show;" impressions from the General Strike; "Ecocríticas" lit conference; Museo Nacional Reina Sofía; day trip to Toledo.
Hi all,
The last two weeks have been busy and stressful but for the most part positive. Ellen and I kicked off our first week of full student teaching and Masters classes (the week before last) with the death by starvation of the butane tank that powers both the cooking elements and the hot water in our apartment - without it (the butane), no hot showers or cooked food! And, chillingly (pun?), no coffee. The standard bombona-replacement procedure involves home delivery of a new tank, but that only works if someone is home when the Repsol folks arrive and they never call ahead to confirm this; in desperate need of some butane, I opted for the ad hoc technique of carrying the empty canister about 15 minutes on foot to a physical Repsol station, buying a new one, and carrying that heavy f***er back. Home-size butane canisters are massive. The full replacement tank truly put my composure to the test. And then it turned out that the station attendant gave me the wrong type of fuel (propane and butane canisters are for some reason labeled identically), so that the entire Sisyphus-type odyssey didn't even pay off! Our saintly landlord Diego saved the day with a butane home delivery, but the entire episode left us w/o hot water for most of the week, an episode exemplary of the level of difficulty that simple chores sometimes unexpectedly assume here. Others e.g. catching the wrong train to class because its destination board's bulb was burned out or something; using Skype in crowded, loud, very un-private internet cafes; accidentally locking yourself out of your apartment for many hours on a work night etc. etc. There: my venting is done and out of the way.
Student teaching at Sagrada Familia (henceforth referred to as SAFA) is off to a solid start. I teach mostly ESO and Bachillerato, the rough equivalents of middle and high school grades - inexplicably, my schedule also includes a few classes as young as 6 and 7 yrs., which is a totally new experience for me. I'm having a hard time even beginning to learn names: 18 classes x roughly 30 students per class means a lot of kids. The ESO and Bachillerato kids get sassy sometimes, and iron-fisted discipline does not come naturally to me: controlling unruly classrooms solo has been a true learning experience. (Read that last in kind of a nasally sarcastic/mocking voice to convey my full distaste for it.) But the kids are all incredibly smart, most speak impressive English, and when it comes down to it they're mostly well behaved. All of the other teachers are fantastic, and one of last year's American student teachers (Abby) is working again at SAFA this year as a "real teacher," which is great. Plus the teacher's lounge has internet, so it's a prime spot to do homework, blog entries, or lesson prep in the afternoons. (Still no internet at home.) I feel really blessed to be working at a school as all-around good as SAFA, and I'm sure (or at least hopeful) that the whole thing will feel comfortable in a matter of weeks.
Of course there have been a few good adventures alongside work and classes. Last weekend we went hiking in the hills behind Alcalá de Henares, hills whose existence I would never have posited looking at the flatness of the nearby landscape. Led by our fearless Eric, we crossed a pretty good-size river via the slippery-algae-covered lip of a totally submerged cement dam, the current pushing urgently sideways at our feet with every step. After crossing that very effective tourist blockade we saw almost no one all afternoon. The trail wound up past the crumbling towers and walls of a Moorish castle, totally unmarked and unprotected and vulnerable to exploration - there's something surreal about architecture over 1,000 yrs. old not warranting even a fence or road or info board. We eventually ended up at the top of a decent-sized hill: certainly not a mountain in the North Cascades sense of the word, but nonetheless a beautiful getaway from the urban bustle of central Madrid. After returning to Alcalá de Henares we stuck around for a "flamenco show" in the town bullring: a show that turned out to be a benefit concert featuring one Carlos Barroso alongside a ton of other acts, all of them vocally and repeatedly - every other song or so - indebted to Carlos, who was evidently organizer as well as performer. Flamenco-wise we knew something wasn't quite right when the warmup act was, rather than a classical Spanish guitarist in the tradition of Andrés Segovia, a DJ dressed head-to-toe in angelic white mixing beatz from behind what I'm pretty sure was a turntable-equipped lectern.
The big adventure of this most recent week was the "29-S Huelga General," the much-hyped city-wide strike targeting Zapatero's apparently insufficient labor reform policies. With SAFA resolutely open but three separate metro lines between home and work, we weren't sure if we'd even be able to teach on Wednesday the 29th - I guess most of the other non-striking commuters were even more concerned, because even with only 20% of the trains running, the metro was so empty that the strike day was the easiest commute all week. That evening Neal Parker (who just moved to Madrid; welcome Neal!) and I walked to Puerta del Sol via Calle Atocha to scope out the rally/march. An hour after the published rally time we left disappointed by the utter lack of crowds; as we walked away from the plaza an incredibly huge crowd appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, marching the opposite direction (back towards Sol). Although the whole thing didn't/doesn't feel like "our strike" at all - ie we're earning Spanish euros here while the unemployment is at 20% - we accepted proffered union stickers and joined the march back to Sol. The gargantuan crowd wore mostly red, and quite a few hammer-and-sickle and Anarchy flags flapped amidst the ubiquitous UGT union banners. The size of this crowd was just astonishing, especially once we realized that similar crowds were converging on Sol from all other directions for a speech and rally. And the papers deemed the strike a failure the next day for its lack of numbers...
The great irony of the day occurred while watching the crowd gather in Sol before the speeches. Over 60 feet tall, at least 80 feet wide, a massive promotional poster for "Come, Reze, Ama" ("Eat, Pray, Love") looked down on the would-be-revolutionary crowd with benign contempt. Julia Roberts' was the face of neoliberal capitalism, utterly undisturbed and smirking. No one around me seemed to notice the dissonance between the populist urgency of a general strike and the ad campaign that, "gold-shot with looming wonder," visually dominated the event; nor between the gritty economic reality that brought the crowd together and the comfortably pseudo-orientalist world view (non-US countries romanticized) projected by the film. (It must be even stranger to see posters for it in Rome.) Start by tearing down the ad, people! Nothing against "Eat, Pray, Love" - just the ironic distance from the strike that its ad forced on us.
Other happenings - I attended a few events at the "Ecocríticas" literary conference hosted by the Univ. Alcalá de Henares, specifically a book launch and a poetry reading/discussion with some visiting authors. While eco-crit as a literary sub-genre (or whatever we want to call it) has existed stateside for decades, it is apparently almost brand-new to Spain. And while Spain's national self-image isn't so bound up in wilderness as, say, that of the American West, there is certainly more than enough spectacular/iconic landscape here to warrant hope that Spanish authors and readers might take readily to the idea that writing and reading about nature are effective (and worthwhile) tools for its preservation and sustained use. I missed the rest of the conference's events due to disappointing combinations of work, class, and getting lost on my way there.
And - Friday night we SAFA student teachers went out with Abby and some Spanish friends of hers. The plan was to keep things low-key because of a rudely scheduled thesis meeting early Saturday morning, but ill-advisedly that plan evolved into staying out to nearly 5 before a 7:30 wakeup. Consequently, Saturday was a relaxing day made up mostly of a visit to the Reina Sofía museum (literally five min walk away from our apartment) during its ample free hours. The Reina Sofía tends toward the modern end of the art spectrum, and highlights for me included: "readymade" and totally indecipherable installations from Duchamp, Klein et al; Picasso's "Guernica" (incredibly huge, overwhelming in person); various Miros and Magrittes; a collection of early-20th-century propaganda posters (mostly communist); and a spectacular but all-too-small collection of paintings by Dali. The Reina Sofía is awesome.
And - I took a Renfe train down to Toledo today, exploring the cobbled historic district for hours. Toledo is a beautiful town to begin with, and today was extra good: with a cold rain-scented wind blowing looming clouds and light showers between gaps of brisk clean fall sunlight, the winding and narrow pedestrian-only streets were gorgeous. Toledo's historic walled center is perched on top of a hill that in turn is surrounded by a river, so that the edges of the old center end in cobbled terraces overlooking the sheer drop down to the water and the rocky bluffs of the far bank. It felt good - in fact, comforting - to have some verticality in the world again. Flocks of swallows dart endlessly after invisibly small insects out over the current, and the wind generates intricate whirling patterns of dry leaves as it comes off the flat plain and hits Toledo's taller buildings, so that the narrow roads are either totally tranquil or - having turned a corner - unexpectedly funnels for the gusts. The Toledo trip was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Spain so far.
Well, that's it for the last two weeks... now back to work at SAFA. Iron-fisted discipline time. Thanks for reading!
Take care,
-Dave
Butane runs out, is restored; adventures in student teaching and classroom management; hike near Alcalá de Henares; talent-show-esque benefit concert falsely billed as "flamenco show;" impressions from the General Strike; "Ecocríticas" lit conference; Museo Nacional Reina Sofía; day trip to Toledo.
Hi all,
The last two weeks have been busy and stressful but for the most part positive. Ellen and I kicked off our first week of full student teaching and Masters classes (the week before last) with the death by starvation of the butane tank that powers both the cooking elements and the hot water in our apartment - without it (the butane), no hot showers or cooked food! And, chillingly (pun?), no coffee. The standard bombona-replacement procedure involves home delivery of a new tank, but that only works if someone is home when the Repsol folks arrive and they never call ahead to confirm this; in desperate need of some butane, I opted for the ad hoc technique of carrying the empty canister about 15 minutes on foot to a physical Repsol station, buying a new one, and carrying that heavy f***er back. Home-size butane canisters are massive. The full replacement tank truly put my composure to the test. And then it turned out that the station attendant gave me the wrong type of fuel (propane and butane canisters are for some reason labeled identically), so that the entire Sisyphus-type odyssey didn't even pay off! Our saintly landlord Diego saved the day with a butane home delivery, but the entire episode left us w/o hot water for most of the week, an episode exemplary of the level of difficulty that simple chores sometimes unexpectedly assume here. Others e.g. catching the wrong train to class because its destination board's bulb was burned out or something; using Skype in crowded, loud, very un-private internet cafes; accidentally locking yourself out of your apartment for many hours on a work night etc. etc. There: my venting is done and out of the way.
Student teaching at Sagrada Familia (henceforth referred to as SAFA) is off to a solid start. I teach mostly ESO and Bachillerato, the rough equivalents of middle and high school grades - inexplicably, my schedule also includes a few classes as young as 6 and 7 yrs., which is a totally new experience for me. I'm having a hard time even beginning to learn names: 18 classes x roughly 30 students per class means a lot of kids. The ESO and Bachillerato kids get sassy sometimes, and iron-fisted discipline does not come naturally to me: controlling unruly classrooms solo has been a true learning experience. (Read that last in kind of a nasally sarcastic/mocking voice to convey my full distaste for it.) But the kids are all incredibly smart, most speak impressive English, and when it comes down to it they're mostly well behaved. All of the other teachers are fantastic, and one of last year's American student teachers (Abby) is working again at SAFA this year as a "real teacher," which is great. Plus the teacher's lounge has internet, so it's a prime spot to do homework, blog entries, or lesson prep in the afternoons. (Still no internet at home.) I feel really blessed to be working at a school as all-around good as SAFA, and I'm sure (or at least hopeful) that the whole thing will feel comfortable in a matter of weeks.
Of course there have been a few good adventures alongside work and classes. Last weekend we went hiking in the hills behind Alcalá de Henares, hills whose existence I would never have posited looking at the flatness of the nearby landscape. Led by our fearless Eric, we crossed a pretty good-size river via the slippery-algae-covered lip of a totally submerged cement dam, the current pushing urgently sideways at our feet with every step. After crossing that very effective tourist blockade we saw almost no one all afternoon. The trail wound up past the crumbling towers and walls of a Moorish castle, totally unmarked and unprotected and vulnerable to exploration - there's something surreal about architecture over 1,000 yrs. old not warranting even a fence or road or info board. We eventually ended up at the top of a decent-sized hill: certainly not a mountain in the North Cascades sense of the word, but nonetheless a beautiful getaway from the urban bustle of central Madrid. After returning to Alcalá de Henares we stuck around for a "flamenco show" in the town bullring: a show that turned out to be a benefit concert featuring one Carlos Barroso alongside a ton of other acts, all of them vocally and repeatedly - every other song or so - indebted to Carlos, who was evidently organizer as well as performer. Flamenco-wise we knew something wasn't quite right when the warmup act was, rather than a classical Spanish guitarist in the tradition of Andrés Segovia, a DJ dressed head-to-toe in angelic white mixing beatz from behind what I'm pretty sure was a turntable-equipped lectern.
The big adventure of this most recent week was the "29-S Huelga General," the much-hyped city-wide strike targeting Zapatero's apparently insufficient labor reform policies. With SAFA resolutely open but three separate metro lines between home and work, we weren't sure if we'd even be able to teach on Wednesday the 29th - I guess most of the other non-striking commuters were even more concerned, because even with only 20% of the trains running, the metro was so empty that the strike day was the easiest commute all week. That evening Neal Parker (who just moved to Madrid; welcome Neal!) and I walked to Puerta del Sol via Calle Atocha to scope out the rally/march. An hour after the published rally time we left disappointed by the utter lack of crowds; as we walked away from the plaza an incredibly huge crowd appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, marching the opposite direction (back towards Sol). Although the whole thing didn't/doesn't feel like "our strike" at all - ie we're earning Spanish euros here while the unemployment is at 20% - we accepted proffered union stickers and joined the march back to Sol. The gargantuan crowd wore mostly red, and quite a few hammer-and-sickle and Anarchy flags flapped amidst the ubiquitous UGT union banners. The size of this crowd was just astonishing, especially once we realized that similar crowds were converging on Sol from all other directions for a speech and rally. And the papers deemed the strike a failure the next day for its lack of numbers...
The great irony of the day occurred while watching the crowd gather in Sol before the speeches. Over 60 feet tall, at least 80 feet wide, a massive promotional poster for "Come, Reze, Ama" ("Eat, Pray, Love") looked down on the would-be-revolutionary crowd with benign contempt. Julia Roberts' was the face of neoliberal capitalism, utterly undisturbed and smirking. No one around me seemed to notice the dissonance between the populist urgency of a general strike and the ad campaign that, "gold-shot with looming wonder," visually dominated the event; nor between the gritty economic reality that brought the crowd together and the comfortably pseudo-orientalist world view (non-US countries romanticized) projected by the film. (It must be even stranger to see posters for it in Rome.) Start by tearing down the ad, people! Nothing against "Eat, Pray, Love" - just the ironic distance from the strike that its ad forced on us.
Other happenings - I attended a few events at the "Ecocríticas" literary conference hosted by the Univ. Alcalá de Henares, specifically a book launch and a poetry reading/discussion with some visiting authors. While eco-crit as a literary sub-genre (or whatever we want to call it) has existed stateside for decades, it is apparently almost brand-new to Spain. And while Spain's national self-image isn't so bound up in wilderness as, say, that of the American West, there is certainly more than enough spectacular/iconic landscape here to warrant hope that Spanish authors and readers might take readily to the idea that writing and reading about nature are effective (and worthwhile) tools for its preservation and sustained use. I missed the rest of the conference's events due to disappointing combinations of work, class, and getting lost on my way there.
And - Friday night we SAFA student teachers went out with Abby and some Spanish friends of hers. The plan was to keep things low-key because of a rudely scheduled thesis meeting early Saturday morning, but ill-advisedly that plan evolved into staying out to nearly 5 before a 7:30 wakeup. Consequently, Saturday was a relaxing day made up mostly of a visit to the Reina Sofía museum (literally five min walk away from our apartment) during its ample free hours. The Reina Sofía tends toward the modern end of the art spectrum, and highlights for me included: "readymade" and totally indecipherable installations from Duchamp, Klein et al; Picasso's "Guernica" (incredibly huge, overwhelming in person); various Miros and Magrittes; a collection of early-20th-century propaganda posters (mostly communist); and a spectacular but all-too-small collection of paintings by Dali. The Reina Sofía is awesome.
And - I took a Renfe train down to Toledo today, exploring the cobbled historic district for hours. Toledo is a beautiful town to begin with, and today was extra good: with a cold rain-scented wind blowing looming clouds and light showers between gaps of brisk clean fall sunlight, the winding and narrow pedestrian-only streets were gorgeous. Toledo's historic walled center is perched on top of a hill that in turn is surrounded by a river, so that the edges of the old center end in cobbled terraces overlooking the sheer drop down to the water and the rocky bluffs of the far bank. It felt good - in fact, comforting - to have some verticality in the world again. Flocks of swallows dart endlessly after invisibly small insects out over the current, and the wind generates intricate whirling patterns of dry leaves as it comes off the flat plain and hits Toledo's taller buildings, so that the narrow roads are either totally tranquil or - having turned a corner - unexpectedly funnels for the gusts. The Toledo trip was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Spain so far.
Well, that's it for the last two weeks... now back to work at SAFA. Iron-fisted discipline time. Thanks for reading!
Take care,
-Dave
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Update 3 from Madrid!
Hello dear readership- it’s been another busy and adventure-filled week in Madrid, the highlights of which I will lay out here! I´m typing in a hurry w/o proofreading, so forgive any glaring typos.
PART I
Monday kicked things off with an orientation session for FERE, the Catholic school organization that runs our student teaching program. The enthusiasm for teaching was palpable as FERE management types explained in detail the role we (the teachers) were to fill and the possible challenges to face along the way – I think all of us left the building genuinely & unironically inspired and ready to work. After first checking off the “open bank account” box on my to-do list at Barclays – good people there – I attended the first day of Masters classes in Alcala de Henares on Tuesday, and it too was successful: our first quarter (there are actually four of them in the ten months - if three terms receive the “quarter” label, perhaps then this program is based on “fifths?”) will consist of Art History and Techniques of Writing, which last is turning out to be more of a pedagogy class than a writing class. (This initially rubbed me the wrong way, but I suppose the pedagogy content will actually be more useful.)
I went to the first morning of student teaching at Colegio Sagrada Familia on Wednesday, where I will be working with three other American “auxiliares de conversacion:” Ellen Wilkinson, Kelly Thurston, and Abby Coffin (all of who will be awesome colleagues). We haven’t done much real “teaching” since Wednesday – mostly sitting in on class – but we’re getting our full schedules tomorrow, and apparently there may possibly be serious amounts of solo classroom time. This is intimidating. But everyone at SAFA is really nice, especially the bilingual director Dario, and I have a great feeling about the school already. Three out of four of last year’s auxiliares opted to stay in Spain at the end of year, which I’ll take as a testament to the program’s success.
Day two of Masters classes (Thursday night) also went well, but I worry that Art History will be much more brutal than I’d first thought – class was literally two uninterrupted hours of writing down dates, names and facts about such art phenomena as Doric columns and such-and-such vases (too lazy to check my notes to supply another sample name here) at a hand-crampingly fast pace. After class ended an incredible thunderstorm woke me up late Thursday night- Friday morning - in a state of sheer animal terror: once the adrenaline subsided and I decided our apartment building hadn’t actually been hit by lightning, the primal nighttime spectacle of the storm was amazing.
AND NOW THE REAL MEAT OF THIS BLOG POST, PART II
I spent basically the entire weekend enjoying the conclusion of the Vuelta a España, Spain’s answer to the Tour de France. Saturday morning I took an early-morning train north out of town with friends Eric and Sydney, transferring after over an hour to another more mountain-type train that bore us up to the isolated town of Navecarrado, a truly alpine-feeling village surrounded by a nature preserve. As we walked away from the train station towards town I saw the first names of cyclists painted on the tarmac: MOSQUERA SCHLECK SASTRE MENCHOV NIBALI etc. We had a four-km hike to get up to the top of the “Bola del Mundo” road where the race would end, and let me tell you now that Bola del Mundo is just beautiful. It was a one-lane (if that) road winding snake-like up the mountainside out of town: in places the surface was cobbled, in others it was as steep as 20% (!!), and a pilgrimage-like procession of fans trudged up out of sight, destination obscured by clouds. We ended up at around 2300m, far above treeline and in the heart of a frigid mountain fog. With the race not projected to arrive for at least five hours more, we sat down to enjoy lunch with our new Spanish friends Lasso, Fernando, Anders and Emilio (not sure about this last name). They’d brought a real feast: bread, tortilla de España (a scrambled-egg-like dish), chocolate, sausage, even donuty cinnamon things. The TV cameras returned to us three times to share the glory of this typically Spanish mountain meal with the raptly watching world. Lasso and Fernando especially were just hilarious: singing and dancing virtually non-stop, they shared with us not only food but jokes, slang, and wisdom. By the day’s end an interlanguage “slang trade” had taken place that introduced to both Spanish and English phrases much too crude to consider repeating here.
After a few hours in a warm alpine-type cafÈ with cafes con leche, we returned to the road to stake out our spectating spot on one of the most brutally steep ramps in the last two kms. From time to time the fog would part to reveal the extent of the crowd packed along the road far below us, waving flags and wearing costumes and generally having a great time as they waited. We heard on our tiny handheld radio that Mosquera attacked with great ferocity at the base of Bola del Mundo; a few minutes later we saw him emerge out of the icy cloud, a screaming double wall of fans stepping out of his way only at the last minute. The Italian race leader Nibali was right behind him, both going “full gas.” The rest of the race came through in ones and twos: Frank Schleck, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov, all wearing the pitiful grimace or 1000-meter stare of the deeply exhausted. One especially spent Spanish rider mumbled as he wobbled past us “empujame” [push me]; Lasso obliged, running alongside him for a good 15 seconds through the frantic crowd. As soon as they finished the stage - and despite the athletes still racing uphill - the first ones up the mountain turned around and rode back down the extremely narrow fan-choked road at pretty incredibly daring speed. The American star Tom Danielson descended by our group and I yelled to him “great work Tom;” he turned around to share a few seconds of eye contact and a big grin! (!!!!) All of us went down the road together: fans walking, fans riding bikes, pros flying through tiny gaps between fans at top speed, everyone sharing the aura of the race’s “Queen stage.” The clouds parted cinematically to reveal a spectacularly wild view below and around us. And as if all that weren’t enough, we ended up meeting family friends of the Sastres on the train ride down from Navecerrado who confirmed that Carlos really is as humble and genuine as he appears on TV. What an incredible day.
Today – Sunday – was the Vuelta’s final stage, a 12-lap criterium-ish race around downtown Madrid. Eric and I staked out a strategic spot at Plaza Cibeles and watched the day’s five-man break form, flourish, struggle and eventually succumb to the combined powers of the HTC-Columbia, Garmin, and Liquigas teams in the finals kilometres. Native Washingtonian Tyler Farrar won the final sprint over HTC’s Mark Cavendish; although I’ve never before been a big Farrar fan, it was pretty great to see him on the podium post-race. I experienced true American pride in Farrar’s victory in the heart of Madrid, a huge city that still sometimes feels foreign to me. Nibali won the overall GC and duly sprayed the podium girls with a comically oversized bottle of champagne. Cav won the green sprinter’s jersey and David Moncoutie the blue-polka-dotted mountain points jersey. In the chaos after the podium ceremony wrapped up we noticed nine XXL boxes of takeout pizza stacked up behind the Garmin team bus: the directeur sportif sped away before anyone else noticed their rude littering. Did I consider keeping one as a souvenir? Yes, but I immediately rejected the plan for sanitary reasons. Down the road Nibali and Mosquera were surrounded by huge crowds of exuberant fans and the mood all throughout Madrid was contagiously positive.
Anyways, it was a very good first week of class and student teaching, and an unforgettable weekend. This next week means the beginning of real full-time student life, so I’m glad the weekend was so full of fun.
Thanks for reading!
Take care,
-Dave
PART I
Monday kicked things off with an orientation session for FERE, the Catholic school organization that runs our student teaching program. The enthusiasm for teaching was palpable as FERE management types explained in detail the role we (the teachers) were to fill and the possible challenges to face along the way – I think all of us left the building genuinely & unironically inspired and ready to work. After first checking off the “open bank account” box on my to-do list at Barclays – good people there – I attended the first day of Masters classes in Alcala de Henares on Tuesday, and it too was successful: our first quarter (there are actually four of them in the ten months - if three terms receive the “quarter” label, perhaps then this program is based on “fifths?”) will consist of Art History and Techniques of Writing, which last is turning out to be more of a pedagogy class than a writing class. (This initially rubbed me the wrong way, but I suppose the pedagogy content will actually be more useful.)
I went to the first morning of student teaching at Colegio Sagrada Familia on Wednesday, where I will be working with three other American “auxiliares de conversacion:” Ellen Wilkinson, Kelly Thurston, and Abby Coffin (all of who will be awesome colleagues). We haven’t done much real “teaching” since Wednesday – mostly sitting in on class – but we’re getting our full schedules tomorrow, and apparently there may possibly be serious amounts of solo classroom time. This is intimidating. But everyone at SAFA is really nice, especially the bilingual director Dario, and I have a great feeling about the school already. Three out of four of last year’s auxiliares opted to stay in Spain at the end of year, which I’ll take as a testament to the program’s success.
Day two of Masters classes (Thursday night) also went well, but I worry that Art History will be much more brutal than I’d first thought – class was literally two uninterrupted hours of writing down dates, names and facts about such art phenomena as Doric columns and such-and-such vases (too lazy to check my notes to supply another sample name here) at a hand-crampingly fast pace. After class ended an incredible thunderstorm woke me up late Thursday night- Friday morning - in a state of sheer animal terror: once the adrenaline subsided and I decided our apartment building hadn’t actually been hit by lightning, the primal nighttime spectacle of the storm was amazing.
AND NOW THE REAL MEAT OF THIS BLOG POST, PART II
I spent basically the entire weekend enjoying the conclusion of the Vuelta a España, Spain’s answer to the Tour de France. Saturday morning I took an early-morning train north out of town with friends Eric and Sydney, transferring after over an hour to another more mountain-type train that bore us up to the isolated town of Navecarrado, a truly alpine-feeling village surrounded by a nature preserve. As we walked away from the train station towards town I saw the first names of cyclists painted on the tarmac: MOSQUERA SCHLECK SASTRE MENCHOV NIBALI etc. We had a four-km hike to get up to the top of the “Bola del Mundo” road where the race would end, and let me tell you now that Bola del Mundo is just beautiful. It was a one-lane (if that) road winding snake-like up the mountainside out of town: in places the surface was cobbled, in others it was as steep as 20% (!!), and a pilgrimage-like procession of fans trudged up out of sight, destination obscured by clouds. We ended up at around 2300m, far above treeline and in the heart of a frigid mountain fog. With the race not projected to arrive for at least five hours more, we sat down to enjoy lunch with our new Spanish friends Lasso, Fernando, Anders and Emilio (not sure about this last name). They’d brought a real feast: bread, tortilla de España (a scrambled-egg-like dish), chocolate, sausage, even donuty cinnamon things. The TV cameras returned to us three times to share the glory of this typically Spanish mountain meal with the raptly watching world. Lasso and Fernando especially were just hilarious: singing and dancing virtually non-stop, they shared with us not only food but jokes, slang, and wisdom. By the day’s end an interlanguage “slang trade” had taken place that introduced to both Spanish and English phrases much too crude to consider repeating here.
After a few hours in a warm alpine-type cafÈ with cafes con leche, we returned to the road to stake out our spectating spot on one of the most brutally steep ramps in the last two kms. From time to time the fog would part to reveal the extent of the crowd packed along the road far below us, waving flags and wearing costumes and generally having a great time as they waited. We heard on our tiny handheld radio that Mosquera attacked with great ferocity at the base of Bola del Mundo; a few minutes later we saw him emerge out of the icy cloud, a screaming double wall of fans stepping out of his way only at the last minute. The Italian race leader Nibali was right behind him, both going “full gas.” The rest of the race came through in ones and twos: Frank Schleck, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov, all wearing the pitiful grimace or 1000-meter stare of the deeply exhausted. One especially spent Spanish rider mumbled as he wobbled past us “empujame” [push me]; Lasso obliged, running alongside him for a good 15 seconds through the frantic crowd. As soon as they finished the stage - and despite the athletes still racing uphill - the first ones up the mountain turned around and rode back down the extremely narrow fan-choked road at pretty incredibly daring speed. The American star Tom Danielson descended by our group and I yelled to him “great work Tom;” he turned around to share a few seconds of eye contact and a big grin! (!!!!) All of us went down the road together: fans walking, fans riding bikes, pros flying through tiny gaps between fans at top speed, everyone sharing the aura of the race’s “Queen stage.” The clouds parted cinematically to reveal a spectacularly wild view below and around us. And as if all that weren’t enough, we ended up meeting family friends of the Sastres on the train ride down from Navecerrado who confirmed that Carlos really is as humble and genuine as he appears on TV. What an incredible day.
Today – Sunday – was the Vuelta’s final stage, a 12-lap criterium-ish race around downtown Madrid. Eric and I staked out a strategic spot at Plaza Cibeles and watched the day’s five-man break form, flourish, struggle and eventually succumb to the combined powers of the HTC-Columbia, Garmin, and Liquigas teams in the finals kilometres. Native Washingtonian Tyler Farrar won the final sprint over HTC’s Mark Cavendish; although I’ve never before been a big Farrar fan, it was pretty great to see him on the podium post-race. I experienced true American pride in Farrar’s victory in the heart of Madrid, a huge city that still sometimes feels foreign to me. Nibali won the overall GC and duly sprayed the podium girls with a comically oversized bottle of champagne. Cav won the green sprinter’s jersey and David Moncoutie the blue-polka-dotted mountain points jersey. In the chaos after the podium ceremony wrapped up we noticed nine XXL boxes of takeout pizza stacked up behind the Garmin team bus: the directeur sportif sped away before anyone else noticed their rude littering. Did I consider keeping one as a souvenir? Yes, but I immediately rejected the plan for sanitary reasons. Down the road Nibali and Mosquera were surrounded by huge crowds of exuberant fans and the mood all throughout Madrid was contagiously positive.
Anyways, it was a very good first week of class and student teaching, and an unforgettable weekend. This next week means the beginning of real full-time student life, so I’m glad the weekend was so full of fun.
Thanks for reading!
Take care,
-Dave
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Update #2 from Madrid!
It’s been one hectic week since last I wrote you. I’ve moved into an apartment in central Madrid with colleague and native midwesterner Ellen Wilkinson, I’ve bid farewell to the wonderful family who opened their home to me for the first week in Spain, I’ve attended orientation for the Masters program and started to get a feel for what our schedule will be consist of, and I’ve enjoyed Madrid’s “Noche en Blanco,” the official “night out on the town.”
Our apartment hunt was, to rely on a cliché, an emotional rollercoaster. First we would get excited about one online listing or another, then immediately suffer for our enthusiasm when our phone call (in awkward, halting, thickly foreign-accented Spanish) paid off only in a brusque “it’s no longer on the market” from the renter . On one occasion the number was evidently fake: the woman who answered hung up on me on my first call, and when I redialed (assuming my Spanish had confused her) and asked again if she was renting an apartment she practically yelled at me: “si eso es un broma, hágalo por favor con otro teléfono,” or “if this is a joke, please pull it on another phone.” My bad.
Once we finally got some appointments to check out apartments in person, we allowed ourselves to float a little on hope – only to run aground repeatedly on the jagged reef of disappointment. Why do two-bedroom apartments come with only one bed – not just once but on several occasions? What’s with the full-year contracts – isn’t Madrid supposed to be full of other international students who’d also prefer month-by-month? Oughtn’t you to mention it in the listing if your apartment building is noisily under construction and/or unsafe? And what the hell people, take your listings down once you’ve rented the apartment! Consider also the brief interaction I had with one would-be landlord who, immediately after promising to call within a few hours with his rental verdict (he didn´t), asked me – apropos nothing – “si [yo era] un judío” or if “I was a Jew" (sic re crass phrasing), citing my apparently Hasidic features and body type. After decades of proximity to close Jewish friends, it seems that the osmosis has finally kicked in.
Finally we found our ideal apartment: small, reasonably priced, very near the central Atocha train station, on a leafy street and facing in towards the quiet interior patio where indolent cats nap on cobblestones and bat at butterflies in the dappled sunlight. Our dueño Diego is a relaxed, wordly man who had no problem at all with the ten-month-only lease: success! That meant that Thursday morning was time to pack up, thank, and say goodbye to my host parents, the kind and elderly Candelas & Jesús. They really made that first week much easier and more enjoyable.
Various asides: the Retiro Park is really gorgeous when it’s windy and fall feels like it’s right around the corner. Also, I saw a young woman sitting by the side of the road with a goofy-looking wiener dog, so quite naturally I smiled at the duo in greeting. In response, the wiener dog charged and savagely nipped me in the leg.
Friday morning was our Masters orientation in Alcalá de Henares. Roomie Ellen and I met up with classmates at the Cercanías station in Alcalá and got to know them during the walk from the train station through the Plaza Cervantes to Instituto Franklin itself, which is housed in a gorgeous old building in the historic center. Honestly, the orientation didn’t give us that much new information relative to how long the whole procedure took – that said, it was a lot of fun to meet so many future classmates and learn even a little more about the program. I went out that afternoon to line up some houseplants for the apartment, and ended up in a florist’s shop in the Retiro neighborhood. The stern, elderly patrons of the shop were watching Friday’s stage of the Vuelta a España – Spain’s answer to the Tour de France – on the shop computer, and I caught the last two kilometres or so. Mark Cavendish won the sprint finish by several bike lengths and actually bunny-hopped in celebration as he crossed the line; the Spanish florists – visibly nonplussed by the whole thing – discussed w/ abundant gesticulation Spanish sprinter Oscar Freire (who finished 10th or so) before, during and after the actual sprint, at no point acknowledging Cav’s win or cocky victory salute. The euro attitude of it all was downright inspirational.
The weekend – our last before classes and student teaching being – has been chock-full of Spanish nightlife. Friday night we ended up in a bar in the La Latina area that I can only describe as a pastiche of both Spanish and non-Spanish cultural stereotypes; Polynesian masks joined Sancho Panza-themed artwork, Arabic script, and 1950s-U.S.A.-type iconography on every wall. The venue also offered an “Arab backroom and lounge chillout” [sic] complete with the requisite pillows and hookahs – all sarcasm aside, the bartender and patrons were super-friendly and the drinks both inexpensive and tasty. From there we wandered the old cobbled streets near Puerta del Sol, a region where bars entice you in by offering free rounds of shots or beers. American promoters take note: this technique works, but wandering patrons will abuse it with ease.
Saturday night – last night – was pretty wacky. It was the annual “La Noche en Blanco,” an official night out, and the city of Madrid scheduled something like 80 different “cultural events” around the city from around midnight clear through to 7am. 2010’s theme was “play,” and the event’s rhetoric suggested (to yr. correspondent at least) Bakhtin: all “privileged spaces,” “multiple voices,” “exploration of rules,” “carnival,” etc. This entailed stuff like enormous swingsets in plazas, public poetry readings, various musical performances, extra-late-night free access to National museums, and an (rumored but unconfirmed) enormous game of Twister. Our experience, however, was a bit different: we wandered first towards what was publicized as an “infinite summer”-ish thing – sand, “island in the city,” etc. – south of the Plaza Mayor. The streets were absolutely packed and everyone was carrying beer or wine; every street was effectively pedestrian-only. This was 100% a family event: kids, toddlers & straight-up babies enjoyed the city’s events with their parents and played soccer wherever there was room. The “Caribbean” plaza offered none of the expected steel drum music; instead, a DJ with a hand-held mini-turntable thing danced frantically to rude ultra-high-bpm techno beatz as more and more of the crowd joined him onstage. Our DJ lost his shirt almost immediately; he spent the last 30 minutes or so of his set also w/o either pants or underwear. Recall again 1. that this was a family event, and 2. that the DJ was hired directly by the city for his performance. We met some Australians and joined forces with them for the remainder of the night, questing north in search of the event’s (again unverified) huge McDonalds-playearea-style ball pit – failing that, we ended up at a bar until about 6am. The streets were still choked with Madrileños – and the kids were all still up – during the walk home. There´s no doubt about it: Madrid’s “La Noche en Blanco” definitely puts to shame every other municipal events I’ve ever attended.
It’s been good to get out and socialize this weekend, because the Masters program starts in earnest this week. I’m pretty darn excited to reenter the world of academia – the first quarter’s classes will be Techniques of Writing and Spanish Art History, both of which sound awesome.
Anyways, I feel that I’ve rambled with this update – I hope you still enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!
Take care,
-Dave
Our apartment hunt was, to rely on a cliché, an emotional rollercoaster. First we would get excited about one online listing or another, then immediately suffer for our enthusiasm when our phone call (in awkward, halting, thickly foreign-accented Spanish) paid off only in a brusque “it’s no longer on the market” from the renter . On one occasion the number was evidently fake: the woman who answered hung up on me on my first call, and when I redialed (assuming my Spanish had confused her) and asked again if she was renting an apartment she practically yelled at me: “si eso es un broma, hágalo por favor con otro teléfono,” or “if this is a joke, please pull it on another phone.” My bad.
Once we finally got some appointments to check out apartments in person, we allowed ourselves to float a little on hope – only to run aground repeatedly on the jagged reef of disappointment. Why do two-bedroom apartments come with only one bed – not just once but on several occasions? What’s with the full-year contracts – isn’t Madrid supposed to be full of other international students who’d also prefer month-by-month? Oughtn’t you to mention it in the listing if your apartment building is noisily under construction and/or unsafe? And what the hell people, take your listings down once you’ve rented the apartment! Consider also the brief interaction I had with one would-be landlord who, immediately after promising to call within a few hours with his rental verdict (he didn´t), asked me – apropos nothing – “si [yo era] un judío” or if “I was a Jew" (sic re crass phrasing), citing my apparently Hasidic features and body type. After decades of proximity to close Jewish friends, it seems that the osmosis has finally kicked in.
Finally we found our ideal apartment: small, reasonably priced, very near the central Atocha train station, on a leafy street and facing in towards the quiet interior patio where indolent cats nap on cobblestones and bat at butterflies in the dappled sunlight. Our dueño Diego is a relaxed, wordly man who had no problem at all with the ten-month-only lease: success! That meant that Thursday morning was time to pack up, thank, and say goodbye to my host parents, the kind and elderly Candelas & Jesús. They really made that first week much easier and more enjoyable.
Various asides: the Retiro Park is really gorgeous when it’s windy and fall feels like it’s right around the corner. Also, I saw a young woman sitting by the side of the road with a goofy-looking wiener dog, so quite naturally I smiled at the duo in greeting. In response, the wiener dog charged and savagely nipped me in the leg.
Friday morning was our Masters orientation in Alcalá de Henares. Roomie Ellen and I met up with classmates at the Cercanías station in Alcalá and got to know them during the walk from the train station through the Plaza Cervantes to Instituto Franklin itself, which is housed in a gorgeous old building in the historic center. Honestly, the orientation didn’t give us that much new information relative to how long the whole procedure took – that said, it was a lot of fun to meet so many future classmates and learn even a little more about the program. I went out that afternoon to line up some houseplants for the apartment, and ended up in a florist’s shop in the Retiro neighborhood. The stern, elderly patrons of the shop were watching Friday’s stage of the Vuelta a España – Spain’s answer to the Tour de France – on the shop computer, and I caught the last two kilometres or so. Mark Cavendish won the sprint finish by several bike lengths and actually bunny-hopped in celebration as he crossed the line; the Spanish florists – visibly nonplussed by the whole thing – discussed w/ abundant gesticulation Spanish sprinter Oscar Freire (who finished 10th or so) before, during and after the actual sprint, at no point acknowledging Cav’s win or cocky victory salute. The euro attitude of it all was downright inspirational.
The weekend – our last before classes and student teaching being – has been chock-full of Spanish nightlife. Friday night we ended up in a bar in the La Latina area that I can only describe as a pastiche of both Spanish and non-Spanish cultural stereotypes; Polynesian masks joined Sancho Panza-themed artwork, Arabic script, and 1950s-U.S.A.-type iconography on every wall. The venue also offered an “Arab backroom and lounge chillout” [sic] complete with the requisite pillows and hookahs – all sarcasm aside, the bartender and patrons were super-friendly and the drinks both inexpensive and tasty. From there we wandered the old cobbled streets near Puerta del Sol, a region where bars entice you in by offering free rounds of shots or beers. American promoters take note: this technique works, but wandering patrons will abuse it with ease.
Saturday night – last night – was pretty wacky. It was the annual “La Noche en Blanco,” an official night out, and the city of Madrid scheduled something like 80 different “cultural events” around the city from around midnight clear through to 7am. 2010’s theme was “play,” and the event’s rhetoric suggested (to yr. correspondent at least) Bakhtin: all “privileged spaces,” “multiple voices,” “exploration of rules,” “carnival,” etc. This entailed stuff like enormous swingsets in plazas, public poetry readings, various musical performances, extra-late-night free access to National museums, and an (rumored but unconfirmed) enormous game of Twister. Our experience, however, was a bit different: we wandered first towards what was publicized as an “infinite summer”-ish thing – sand, “island in the city,” etc. – south of the Plaza Mayor. The streets were absolutely packed and everyone was carrying beer or wine; every street was effectively pedestrian-only. This was 100% a family event: kids, toddlers & straight-up babies enjoyed the city’s events with their parents and played soccer wherever there was room. The “Caribbean” plaza offered none of the expected steel drum music; instead, a DJ with a hand-held mini-turntable thing danced frantically to rude ultra-high-bpm techno beatz as more and more of the crowd joined him onstage. Our DJ lost his shirt almost immediately; he spent the last 30 minutes or so of his set also w/o either pants or underwear. Recall again 1. that this was a family event, and 2. that the DJ was hired directly by the city for his performance. We met some Australians and joined forces with them for the remainder of the night, questing north in search of the event’s (again unverified) huge McDonalds-playearea-style ball pit – failing that, we ended up at a bar until about 6am. The streets were still choked with Madrileños – and the kids were all still up – during the walk home. There´s no doubt about it: Madrid’s “La Noche en Blanco” definitely puts to shame every other municipal events I’ve ever attended.
It’s been good to get out and socialize this weekend, because the Masters program starts in earnest this week. I’m pretty darn excited to reenter the world of academia – the first quarter’s classes will be Techniques of Writing and Spanish Art History, both of which sound awesome.
Anyways, I feel that I’ve rambled with this update – I hope you still enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!
Take care,
-Dave
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Update #1 from Spain
It’s Sunday evening here, so I’ve been in Spain for nearly four days. So far everything is off to a great start! The flight(s) over went fine – freak thunderstorms delayed my Dallas-Madrid leg, but with a nine-hour flight a two-hour delay doesn’t matter so much. I sat next to a professor at the University of Alicante on the way over: a good way to switch into full Spanish conversation mode. (In-flight entertainment on the way over included, by the way, both “30 Rock” and the excellent “How To Tame Your Dragon.”)
Thankfully I had a friend to meet at the airport: Juan, a previous guest of the Monaco Glynn household and so a one-degree-of-separation family friend. Thanks Juan! He gave me a ride from the Barajas airport to Alcalá de Henares, the town near Madrid where I’m currently staying with a one-week homestay. My host parents are wonderful: Jesús and Candelas, a very kind elderly couple. Conversations with Candelas re: feminism, religion, politics have allowed me to practice my castellaño at home as well as on the streets (both literal and figurative) of Madrid.
The evening of my arrival in Alcalá de Henares I took a stroll around town to start to get my bearings. By happy coincidence I ran into Ellen – program-mate and colleague at the school where we’ll be teaching English – near the Plaza Cervantes. We got a beer at one of the many cafés along the cobbled & pedestrian-only Calle Mayor – outdoor seating, of course – and enjoyed the warm, bustling evening: the whole town was out strolling by about ten. In the Plaza Cervantes a concert was taking place to honor Alacalá de Henares’ senior citizens, the highlight of which was certainly the glistening & nubile male backup singer in skintight white pants who held a microphone but – despite that accessory – abstained from singing altogether and instead danced sensuously, like the charmed Moroccan cobra of popular imagination, downwind of the fog machine. I cannot say yet whether this is a typical senior-citizen-honoring tradition.
I began the next day (Friday?) with a successful cellphone hunt (655.20.14.54), then went into Madrid proper via the Renfe light rail line. It’s about half an hour into town, which commute will suck when I have to make it back to Alcalá de Henares twice a week for Masters classes. I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens first, a lovely downtown oasis of green populated by feral cats that hunt the garden’s many songbirds. My repeated attempts to befriend these cats were rebuffed. However, my spirits were lifted as I left the gardens when two separate Spaniards asked me for directions(!) - and, better yet, I was able to give them(!!). Next stop was a tapas bar for lunch and conversation with a pair of Australian women. From there I visited the Buen Retiro park (massive, beautiful) and met up with Ellen for the Prado museum’s 6:00-7:30pm free entrance, which was of course excellent. Then we met up with more classmates – Megan, Kristin, Ivan, Laura, AnnaLaura, Claire – for tapas, drinks, and a fun evening. What a relief to meet great people from the program so early on!
The weekend has gone well too – a full day of apartment-hunting yesterday, followed by another evening in central Madrid for wine and dinner at Kristin’s apartment. Today we returned to the Buen Retiro park and then the Retiro neighborhood for late lunch, and since then it’s been a quiet day, which is really pleasant.
No luck yet in terms of apartments, but I’m still optimistic. And I’ve totally forgotten to take any pictures so far, but once I get some quality shots I’ll be sure to share them.
Thanks for reading, and follow this blog for further updates!
Take care,
-Dave
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