A Quick History/Political/Geography Lesson

While I may not be learning all that much in my actual classes here in Salamanca, I have gained a much greater understanding of the country of Spain in general: the politics, the economy, the geography, etc. Historically, at the end of the Middle Ages, Spain was composed of several different kingdoms, which were remnants from an even earlier history. These kingdoms still have a presence in present day Spain in the form of the Autonomous Communities. Spain has 17 of these communities, which could be compared to the 50 states that compose America. However, even after over 500 years of unity, the desire of several of these communities to be separate has never really gone away and manifests itself in several ways.

The most marked difference is language. While most of Spain speaks Castellano, known to us as Spanish, three communities in particular, Cataluna, Pais Vasco, y Gallecia, all have their own languages, Catalan, Euskera, y Gallego respectively. I was in Barcelona this past weekend, and I have to say I was surprised by the heavy prevalence of Catalan, as in all the signs were in Catalan, and the menus, and I was addressed in Catalan. It was almost if I was back in Portugal, as I could pretty much reads the signs and understand what was said to me since all three languages are very similar, but I couldn't speak it since I don't actually know the language. I guess I was thinking that while they had pride in their language, Castellano would still be the most prevalent language, but it was very much the other way around. Several people from my group said they could see themselves living in Barcelona in the future, but I couldn't as it would require me to learn another language to use at restaurants and stores etc., and since I've just spent the past 10 years of my life studying Spanish, if I was to live in Spain, I'd want to live somewhere I could actually use it.

At least I could vaguely understand Catalan. I didn't make it the north of Spain this visit (which is too bad, but just means I have to visit again :)) but a couple of my friends went up to Bilbao and San Sebastian in Pais Vasco and came back saying the language is absolutely crazy up there. In fact Euskera has no relation to any current language, and linguistic experts have no idea where it originated from, though several theories have been put out there. It is a very old language, predating the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. However, while there is no way I would understand Euskera, there is a heavy prevalence of Spanish up there since during Franco's regime, the teaching of languages other than Castellano in school was banned and there are a couple generations of people who never learned Euskera formally.

A sign written in Euskera

Those are just the language differences. Earlier this month the terrorist seperatist group ETA, from Pais Vasco, formally declared it would stop fighting. It originated as a movement against Franco, but even after his death it continued blowing up people. With the militant separatist movement at an end, the separatist political party was allowed to run for the first time in the elections last week and won a good portion of the votes in the community. The Cataluna separatist party also always wins in that province too.

A poor image but the dark blue and the turquoise are the separatist parties 

All in all it's an interesting situation and the nerd in me loves have you can trace the present day situation back to its historical roots :)

Policeman and Prostitutes and Lesbians Oh My!

 So I've just returned from Madrid where I had a roaring good time with one of my best friends Jillian. It was a weekend full of in-your-face real life situations. Por ejemplo...

Numero 1 - Getting Lost on the Way to the Hostel and Totally Flummoxing a Policeman 
After meeting up in la Estacion Sur de Autobuses in Madrid, which in itself was quite interesting since we decided to wait for each other in two different places, Jillian's phone didn't have any minutes left on it for me to contact her with, and we weren't even sure we were in the same bus station to start out with, we hopped on the metro following the directions I had scrawled down in my notebook that morning. We got off at the indicated metro stop and wandered around in the pouring rain until we happened upon the first street in my series of directions. We checked off each step without any problems until we came to the last step: finding the actual street the hostel was on. My instructions informed me that we were supposed to make a right turn off the street we were on, but as we walked and walked, and kept on walking, we began to suspect that either we or the directions had messed up at some point. We stopped at a busier looking street to find someone to ask for directions when a cop car pulled to the side of the road. Perfect! In elementary school they teach you that cops are there to help you when you are lost! How lucky were we! We scurried over and motioned the cop to roll down his window. He obliged and I explained (in Spanish) that we were looking for our hostel but couldn't find the street it was on. He pulled out a little book of maps that I guess cops carry in their pockets and started rather half-heartily looking through it. He was browsing through the index and taking his own sweet time, when his cop buddy came on over too. I explained the problem to him and he whipped out his little map book, found the street we were looking for in about two seconds, and told us it was right there. I guess the other cop wasn't really trying that hard. Anyway, it turned out that the street we needed to turn down was to the left, not the right. Problem solved, we ducked into the hostel and checked in sure everything would be super smooth from that point on. In fact immediately we were confronted by problema numero dos...

Numero 2 - Finding a Movie Theater Using the Method of Wandering Around
After checking in, we dumped our sheets on the beds that (we thought) were free and headed back down to front desk to ask where we could find a (preferably English language) movie theater in order to see Amanecer (Breaking Dawn to you none Spaniards out there) which was kinda the point of the trip. However, the front desk man informed us that there was no extra laptops for us to use and he was too busy checking people in to look it up for us since he wasn't even from Madrid either and didn't know where the movie theaters were. Undaunted, we set out anyway and stopped at a bar to get some tapas and cañas to fortify ourselves for the search. I asked the bar tender where we could find movie theaters, and he told us that there were some on Grand Vía, the next street over. Long story short, after walking in the wrong direction on Grand Vía and stopping at a theater that wasn't showing the movie, we achieved our goal of buying tickets to watch Breaking Dawn opening night in Spain! Now all that was missing was the candy, and the search for it directly leads to real life situation number three...


Numero 3 - Walking Down a Street Full of Prostitutes 
Now they all could have been a group of perfectly normal ladies just out for the evening in thigh high boots, short skirts, and extremely low cut tops... but the more likely scenario is that they were a bunch of prostitutes. 


Candy bought and movie seen (absolutely hysterical btw), Jillian and I were tired and ready for bed. We headed back to the hostel with visions of sheets and individual beds dancing in our heads. These wouldn't seem like things that were out of reach, yet this weekend that's pretty much what they ended up being, leading us to real life situation number four...


Numero 4 - Being Mistaken for a Lesbian Couple for the Whole Weekend
Opening the door to our room, we noticed immediately that there were people sleeping in the beds we had placed the sheets on. This was not a good development. Searching with the light from my cellphone we found two beds without people, however, one of which had a suitcase and other crap piled on top of it. That left one bed for the two of us, but where did our sheets go? We thought we saw them sitting on one of the occupied beds, so with the stealth of a ninja, we took them out from under the sleeping girl and made the bed with them. Jillian and I are used to sharing beds from our riding team days so it didn't really faze us, but it probably did lead the rest of our roommates to the wrong conclusion when they noticed us sharing the bed. Jillian told me that at one point during the night, one of the guys came back (probably drunk) stumbled into our bed, did a double take and started for a few minutes, before going and passing out into his own bed. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. 


Though it may not seem that way, Jillian and I had a super-duper fantastic weekend and took all the problems as just amusing bumps in the road. It was so much fun to see her, since it turned out we hadn't seen each other since the previous December. We did the whole touristy thing and went to the Prado, Natural History museums to see some dinosaurs, Reina Sofia, etc. All in all it was a great time and it was very sad to say goodbye at the bus station on Sunday. Next time we see each other it will be stateside! 

AMANECER!!!

A much needed breakfast at Dunkin Coffee (not Donut here in Spain)

Jillian and I outside of Reina Sofia

Round 2

I've gathered up enough observations that it´s time once more for another fun and exciting round of "Things That are Different in Spain."

1) Spanish News
The news in Spain is a lot more graphic. I´m guessing maybe it´s for the ratings, but I can´t be sure. For example in the United States when they cover a car crash, they never show the bodies, just the clean up of the damaged cars. Not here in Spain however. I´ve yet to go through a news watching segment without them showing bodies lying on the side of the road. Most of the time they are cover with a sheet or in a body bag but other times they´re not. My host family never seems shocked by it, but it seems to me as a gross invastion of privacy after death, and I would be very upset if it was my mother/father/sister/friend, etc. that was shown on TV. In addition to car crashes, they´re also a fan of showing other graphic things, such as torreros getting gouged by bulls, bulls dying in los Correros, clips from abroad such as the Chinese toddler being repeatedly run over, and Gaddafi being beaten. There are no "Warning this clip contains graphic content," advisories, they are just straight up played. I´m not a fan.

2) Dread Mullets
Now supposedly mullets went out of style at the end of the 80s but I guess no one informed a lot of people in Spain. Not only are mullets a regular occurance, but a high percentage of the mullet wearers have upped the anty and DREADED the long part of the mullet. I´m not really sure how they think that it looks good in any sort of way, and I´m guessing they´re going to wake up one day several years from now, look in the mirror, and think,"What the hell is happening on my head?! Did a small animal die up there? Oh wait, it´s just my dread mullet." In my opinion, it's pretty hideous.

An example of a dread mullet (photo courtesy of Google)

3) Nuns
There are nuns everywhere. I guess it makes sense when you think about how large a percentage of Spaniards identify as Catholic (around 80%, though a smaller number are actually practicing Catholics) but it still throws me a little whenever I see one, since I could have probably counted my nun spottings back in the United States on my hands with fingers left over. The most amusing nun spotting was a month or so ago when some of my friends and I went hiking in Bejar. We went to use the tiny bathroom in the bus station, but before we could get in, THREE nuns came out, one after the other. It was a little like clowns leaving a small car. I see them all over town, and I'm pretty sure there's actually a monastery somewhere in Salamanca. 

That's all I can think of right now. However, there's probably more things that I've noticed, so eventually there may be a round three! Hasta luego!

I Probably Shouldn't Become a Cave-Dwelling Hippie

I've reached the two month point in my stay in Europe, which means that I'm now over half-way done and have received my cue to be sad that my departure is now getting closer and closer. What I'm going to miss most of all is the ability to hop on a train or plane and get off a couple hours later in a totally different country with a different language, culture, history, the whole shebang. I can totally see how the hippies I hung out with at my hostel in Granada last weekend ended up just not going back to their country of origin. That's not to say I think I could travel like they do, just ending up in places, finding jobs, and semi-living in caves (though apparently they're nice in Granada, more like houses) but I definitely could spend more time abroad, perhaps teaching for a year or something along those lines like some of the other Americans I met were doing. I'll have to see, I have lots of time ahead of me, but I'm sure not counting down the days until I leave like some people are doing! 

New dog friend named Poker

La Alhambra viewed from the hostel

Granada and Paco's cactuses (Seriously, there was a sign that said "Please don't throw trash into Paco's cactuses.")

One of the girls we met at the hostel told us about this street near a graffiti artist's house that was really cool. It was murals and drawings and not just someone's initials scrawled with spray paint. 

Patio de los Arrayanes inside el Palacio Nazari in La Alhambra

Overview of Granada and the mountains from one of the towers of Alcazaba at La Alhambra

If there are no pumpkins to carve for Halloween, pineapples are almost as good!