The Clock is Ticking

Well, I don't have much time left here in Spain. I have just 10 days. How do I feel about this? Conflicted. I've really enjoyed my time in Spain and am not ready to complete my studies. At the same time, I am THRILLED to be going home, back to MY bed, food that I cook, MY bike, and the family. I'm hoping that I can continue my studies formally upon my return.

What have I been up to the past few weeks? The last three weekends, I've gone with friends to the beach. Twice to Alumunecar and once to La Herradura. My friend got so sunburned this weekend that she developed an infection in her skin and we had to go to the ER. It only took 45 minutes there, however, and less than 2 minutes in the pharmacy and we were all set. Socialized medicine did not live up to it's reputation of long lines and crappy service. Also, about a week and a half ago, I celebrated my 35th birthday with mojitos, Mexican food, margaritas, and more mojitos. We also met a guy that night who was an architect, boxer, and bullfighter. Who knows how much of that was true.

During my time in Spain, I've met many people from a vast variety of countries. I've kept track of those countries and, in the last 16 weeks, have met people from:

Sweden
Korea
Denmark
Germany
France
Spain
Israel
Morocco
Taiwan
England
Cyprus
Austria
Columbia
Australia
Gibraltar
Italy
Brazil
Senegal
Kenya
Ireland
Poland
Georgia
Japan

I'm pretty impressed with that list!

It's only ten days until I can lay my head on my own pillow. Thank goodness!

What's in a Name and a Tricky Situation

What's in a name? Well here, in Spain, it's your grandfathers but never your husband.

Here's how it works. Everyone has two last names. When they are born, children get the first last name from each parent. So if Jose Martinez Garcia and Maria Lorca Jiminez had a child named Ana, her full name would be Ana Martinez Lorca. Martinez and Lorca are the last names of her two grandfathers while the last names of her two grandmothers do not get passed down.

Also interesting to me is that the women do not change their names when they get married. I prefer this. It's always been weird to me that women change their name when they get married. It was once a source of an argument I had. The opposing party said, "Well if she loved him, she would take his last name." To this, I logically responded, "If he loved her, he would take her last name. What kind of logic is that? Now they've both switched last names!" Of course, I think women should have a choice but I personally prefer the keeping of the original last name as that is who the woman is.

Interestingly, according to some of our teachers, in many Central and South American countries, women don't change their names but do add the names of their husband at the end proceeded by "de". For example, if Ana Martinez Lorca married Pablo Ruiz Picasso, she could choose to have the name Ana Martinez Lorca de Ruiz. I don't really care for this either as the word "de" implies possession or ownership. The coche de Ruiz is the car belonging to Ruiz and I don't like the idea of Ana belonging to Ruiz. But again, to each his own.

I'm having one of these moments right now:



I did something pretty bad today, just like Chunk in the clip. As many know, eating in Spain has been extremely difficult for me. There are many foods that I REALLY don't like and I have had to eat most of them here. As I live with a family, I don't get to choose my meals, they simply show up on a plate in front of me. So, today I snapped a little. Mostly this was a portion issue and not the actual food itself. I had a huge bowl of zucchini soup and this was followed by a ginormous salad. I just couldn't eat anymore of the salad. When I eat salads, it's not that I get full, I just get tired of chewing. And I just couldn't do it anymore. Then, when the phone rang and when Abuela went to answer it, I seized my opportunity and dumped the remainder of my salad on her plate.

Wow. That was pretty terrible. In my defense, however, Abuela is always talking about how she LOVES verduras (vegetables) and she is like maybe 100 pounds so an extra portion would do her some good. I, on the other hand, now feel awful. Oh well.

Observations Part 3

So, when I first came to Spain, I thought it was unusual that the supermercados (supermarkets) were really pretty small. I would say that none of the supermercados have been bigger than Stowers & Son Market (a great place to buy meat, by the way). I did some investigating and this is what I've discovered. The mercados (markets) tend to be what we would call a Farmer's Market.

• The supermercados are simply grocery stores.
• Bigger grocery stores than supermercados are called hipermercados. These are similar to our supermarkets.

I am hopeful that we never start referring to our stores as hypermarkets. That sounds to goofy.

Cordoba

This past weekend, I attended my final excursion with my school. Why final, you ask? Because I've been on all the excursions they offer. With five weekends left during my big adventure, I will have to continue my travels solo or with friends.

Cordoba was a very interesting and old city. How old? Well, for example, the mosque was built on top of an old cathedral beginning in the 700s. So it's so old that they were already building on top of other buildings 1400 years ago. That's pretty old.



The Cathedral/Mosque/Cathedral are very interesting. The Moors (Muslim and Arab) dominated southern Spain from the 8th Century until the 15th Century, mas o menos. Thus, when the Moors came to Cordoba in the 8th Century, the decided the best place to build a really really big Mosque was right on top of existing Cathedral. Around 700 years later, they would meet karma and parts of the Mosque would be converted back into a Cathedral.

For me, going into the Cathedral/Mosque/Cathedral was pretty weird. I'd learned about both Muslim and Catholic architecture and art during the art appreciation class I took last fall. Muslims do not decorate their buildings with depictions of humans, animals, events, etc which, of course, Catholics do. Thus, it was super weird to see the intricate geometric designs of the Muslims next to a painting of Christ's crucifixion.



















While in Cordoba, we also visited a very old synagogue which, despite being of the Jewish faith of course, also had Muslim decor. The buildings were really a "mixto" of cultures.

Most of the streets we were on in Cordoba were very small (like as wide as my umbrella) and windows were covered with flowers. This is done for both the cooling effects and to provide a pleasant scent.

Unlike previous trips, this trip went very smoothly and there were no problems. Thank goodness!

As a side note, my dinner when I got home was an entire large plate of cooked spinach with a fried egg mixed in. I thought there was no way any human could eat an entire plate of cooked spinach but I did it. Where's my blue ribbon?

Semana Santa

Semana Santa is big here. I mean really big. There are places in the world where Holy Week is a big deal but no where is it bigger than in Andalusia (my region of Spain). All the schools and the university are closed for the week as are some businesses. At a minimum, people don't work from Thursday on, if not more. Each day, there are multiple relgious processions and, on Wednesday, there was a 10 hour procession that began at 9 p.m. and finished around 7 a.m.. This included carrying the "float" of Jesucristo (for lack of a better word) up a mountain and having it serenaded by the gypsies. It is my understanding that the "floats" are carried by 5 rows of 15 people, mas o menos. They always have a statue of Jesucristo or La Virgin Maria on top so it's pretty dang heavy. Below are some videos of a procession (about a month before Semana Santa) and Stations of the Cross (during Semana Santa). The smoke you see on the Stations of the Cross video is, of course, incense. The city has smelled like it all week which I enjoy. The videos are all 15 seconds or less.

Gibraltar

Two weeks ago, the day after we went to Morocco, my friend Ida and I had a much better experience traveling to Gibraltar.


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That morning, after spending the night in the port town of Algeciras, Spain, Ida and I grabbed the city bus over to La Linea, Spain, the border town next to Gibraltar. It took about a half hour to get there but the cost was only about $2 (as compared to a taxi which was around $40). Upon arriving in La Linea, we were dumped at the bus station and crossed the boarder into Gibraltar on foot. We were hoping to get our passports stamped but no dice. The border patrol barely looked up and just waved us through.

In Gibraltar, there is a cable car that takes you to the top of the rock. When we arrived at the entrance to the cable car, a nice young man from a competing business told us that for just 3 euros more, his company would take us on a tour of the rock in a van complete with information from the guide, stops at all the sites on the rock, and free entrance to the caves and to the military defense tunnels (normally 10 euros each). We would also get to feed the Barnaby apes that live on the rock. Sign us up! Off we went with a group from England (there are many Brits in Gibraltar as it is a sort of commonwealth of the UK although it has its own government and constitution).



On our way up the rock, we stopped several time for scenic views. We also stopped at the famous caves of Gibraltar. These caves include a performance venue inside. It was outside these caves that we first met the Barnaby apes. They are extremely friendly although will steal food if you are holding it in your hands. Our guide was extremely familiar with the apes and had them sitting on our shoulders and eating out of our hands.

















It was also at the caves that we also first came across a strange travel group. This group consisted of approximately 15 American males ranging in age from approximately 20 to 40, mas o menos. And, in the great spirit of representing the States, the spoke with terrible grammar, some were missing teeth, some wearing bib overalls, many heavily tattooed, and they were all drinking beer in and out of their van at around 11 a.m.. As a cyclist was headed down the rock, the one dude said to him, "Way to go, Louie Armstrong!" Douchebag, it's Lance Armstrong. Later, when a soccer field was in view, the same guy yells, "Hey, I think David Beckman is down there." Beckman, he said Beckman, not Beckham, but BeckMAN. I was mortified that such a group was representing all of us abroad. I spoke to one of the least obnoxious members of this group and asked where they were from. He said they were all from Louisiana. As we continued to see them, stop after stop, I wondered what would make 15 friends from Louisiana decide they wanted to hop on a plane and fly 10 hours to a small British country on the edge of Spain. Finally, at the last stop and after the comment about David "Beckman", I apologized to our tour guide and explained that most Americans were not like them. He laughed and said that these guys were actually from an oil rig in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar. They had started drilling in Egypt and had eventually made their way to the Strait. He said he understood not all Americans were similar to these guys. I had several reactions to this news. First, it made sense. They were from Louisiana, they were young, and they were all dudes. Of course they were oil rig workers. Then, I again became mortified. These guys had been traveling all through North Africa and now Europe acting like this and representing the States. I am sure that somewhere on Facebook, there are pictures of them in their bibs with beer in front of the pyramids grinning their toothless smiles. However, f they are able to travel to such interesting places, perhaps I should consider a future on an oil rig.

The entire day in Gibraltar was great. After our tour, we had a lunch of fish and chips, walked through the old downtown, and just generally enjoyed being around people who were speaking English and not trying to swindle us. We had some extra time to kill before our train back to Granada so we crossed the border a little early and went to the western most beach of Costa del Sol.

One of the interesting aspects of Gibraltar is the airport, or to be more specific, the runway. Gibraltar is a small country. According to Wikipedia, it's 2.6 square miles or about 1600 acres. That's not very big. At the location of the airport, Gibraltar is 1.1 miles wide. As such, the runway must run the whole width of the country/peninsula. No problem. Oh wait, what about the main street into town? Ah, the runway bisects it. Thus, when a plane is taking off, traffic on the road is stopped and the train proceeds down the runway including crossing the main drag. Luckily for us, we were able to see a plane take off. It was pretty cool.
























All in all, we really enjoyed Gibraltar and felt very comfortable there. It's not a big place and was very clean. We highly recommend it. Ironically, just a few days before our visit, Prince Charles and Camila were there. They also visited Spain and were told by Prince Felipe that he'd like Gibraltar back. It's been British for 300 years. Spain's not getting it back. Nice try though, Felipe.

Soup du Jour

Today's lunch was soup which included the following ingredients:

• canned tomato soup
• meatballs (processed/store bought/kinda gross)
• a green legume of sorts
  
• french fries.

Yes, all that in one bowl. Señora bought a deep fryer two weeks ago and it's been non-stop fries ever since. They serve fries with everything here. I'm sure they eat more potatoes if not more fries than Americanos.