I am in Germany, uh... I mean Holland

Today I find myself in Maastricht, Holland, which appears to be the bicycle center of the universe. I apologize in advance for not being able to show you any pretty pictures in this post. So, the truth of the matter is that my German friend and I (not the one that I went to the theatre with) were going to travel from Dusseldorf to Munich, and weeeeeell... it turns out that a miniscule mistake in online ticket-ordering can prevent you from being able to fly. Even if you already bought the very expensive tickets. In simpler terms, both tickets were bought under the name of the same passenger, and apparently that (a) isn't fixible and (b) doesn't "fly" with the airport staff, pardon the pun.

Anyway, I arrived in Germany on Wednesday, after a very nice last couple of days in Spain that I still need to write and post pictures about. So far, I have had a surprisingly smooth transition between countries. Allow me to explain.

1. Upon arriving, I located a Spanish girl from my flight (who had been living in Germany for a year) and she helped me buy my ticket to Dusseldorf from the Cologne airport train station. Spanish.
2. She introduced me to another person who had also been on our flight: a guy from Brazil who had been living in Spain for several months. He was taking the same train as me. More Spanish.
3. On the train, we began speaking to two Colombians (in Spanish, obviously) who were living in Germany. They asked me if I was Spanish, and then, upon finding out that I was a gringa (American girl), they started (good-naturedly) making fun of my Spain-Spanish accent.
4. As soon as I saw my German friend, we launched into full-on discussion... in Spanish.
5. Once I had dropped off my things in her swanky apartment, she took me to a tapas restaurant. Where the titles for the menu items were in... you guessed it, Spanish.
6. I would like to take the time to remind anyone reading this that I was in Germany... in case the trend of events was beginning to inspire doubt.
7. The next night, we hung out with a group of Spanish-speaking Germans, a girl from Colombia, and a girl from Argentina... at the despedida (goodbye party) at a Mexican resturant for a girl about to live abroad in Latin America for several months.
8. Am I in Germany? Really?!
9. Oh no, wait. I am in Holland.

It is time for my friend and I to go eat. We are hungry.

It's my last full day in Madrid

FIRST AND FOREMOST: If you'd like to leave me a comment or say hi, I'd highly encourage it. I like writing for an audience and enjoy knowing who my readers are. :)

Leaving this city always makes me sad, tanto por la gente como por la ciudad en sí (1). I have no doubt that I could stay here (working) for quite a long time and be happy. I have a certain level of comfort here that I don't have in any other "foreign" location, and perhaps that is why I love to return so much. It's fun for me to feel like I fit somewhere where I don't actually belong.

(There are numbered footnotes at the bottom of the post... because I like footnotes.)

I am not leaving with quite the same level of expertise in spoken Spanish that I was hoping for, and here's why:

1. The focus of this vacation was much more on it being a vacation, on experience, on travel, and on spending time with good people, no matter what language they were speaking.
2. I didn't have a job like I did years ago that forced me out of the house and into an all-Spanish, sink-or-swim environment. That's what I would want next time I'm here... something to do daily that requires me to get up and go somewhere, and grab a newspaper en route.
3. Because I had no job, large chunks of the day were spent either at home, watching dubbed TV, or out, meandering the streets by myself. Neither of those situations is particularly good for practicing speech unless I happened to be very inclined to talk to myself outloud in Spanish for hours on end (and correcting myself) or extremely adept at engaging strangers in conversation. I actually happen to be pretty good at both of those things, but for some reason, it really wasn't a great avenue to take this trip.
4. I was not here long enough or consistently enough to conseguir a Spanish-speaking novio (2), which I know from primary sources and a tad bit of personal experience is the number one way to buy myself a one-way ticket to Fluentville. So since that was not the reality of things this time, Boston it is then. Any takers? I'll be accepting applications for the position upon my return. Persons with low threshold for human error need not apply.
   

Why not all hope is lost: Strangely enough, I might wind up getting better at my Spanish while traveling through Germany. Say what?! you ask. Well, as it turns out, the chica I will be visiting is the very same girl that I lived with three summers ago in Madrid. She lived for years in Spain, and has since become fluent. I suspect that she speaks rather accurately (and at the very least, much better than me) since she spent quite a while studying Spanish grammar as part of a degree she earned in Spain. Her default language with me is Spanish because it is easier for her than English. I plan to use that to my advantage.

That said, I would like to liven this post up with a couple of pictures and stories.

Story 1: I went to El Rastro after not having been there for years, and mulled around, looking for this and that and hoping to find a few bargains (which I did). In my meanderings, I came across this man. He was playing the guitar with one hand.

I watched for a while at first and then started to walk away, but then I thought, "Geez, this sort of thing doesn't happen too often. I've gotta talk to the guy." So I waited until he was done with song two, marched myself right over, and introduced myself. "I'm really impressed," I told him in Spanish. "You play well." Then I showed him that I too had only one hand and he nearly jumped back in surprise. "No way!" So we talked awhile, I bought his CD, and before leaving, I shook his left hand with my right, and was back on my merry way with a smile.

Story 2: I was hanging out with some good friends of mine (an American guy and a Spanish gal) who were giving a tour of Madrid to a girl from Finland. This was another day of nearly all English, but fantastic nonetheless, because of the wicked (3) awesome people I was hanging out with. Here are a couple funny signs:

This sign should read: "[Red do-not-enter symbol] Excepto vehiculos autorizados (except authorized vehicles)"
Instead it reads: "[Red do-not-enter symbol] Excepto culos autorizados (except authorized butts/asses)"

I love word-play vandalism.
This Plaza de España sign comes first in Spanish. Then underneath, the Spanish is translated to English. Can you see the difference? No? Look. Look harder. Still no? Keep looking (4).

Story 3: While hanging out with aforementioned group of wicked awesome individuals, we stopped for some food. Below, you can see Los pimientos de Padrón, a famous Spanish dish in which the saying goes unos pican y otros no (some bite and some do not). According to this website that I am linking to here about Los pimientos de Padrón, about ten percent of the peppers "bite" or you could also say "are spicy." This was not my experience. I kept a running tally (see below).

As you can see, early on in the game, I was not encountering any spicy ones. Now, according to the approximate 10 percent, one would expect a spicy one somewhere in the next three. Perhaps my standards for what I considered to picar and what I considered to not picar were too high. Perhaps my tastebuds are made of steel. However it went, though, of the forty-one peppers on my plate (forty-one!!!), my friend Vanessa claims that the one she tried did, in fact, picar. That would be my luck. She seemed like she had to think about it a bit before reporting that it was spicy. Was it, then, actually that spicy, or did the spiciness not hit her until a few seconds later? I will never know.

The interesting thing about these peppers, is that they naturally occur this way. Some are naturally hot when you eat them. Neither the color, the form, nor the size tell you whether it will have bite. Interesting. Veeeeeeery interesting.

Story 4: If you will please note below that I have taken a picture of ice cream and some signs:

This is not just any ice cream, though. Oh no. This is the ONE PLACE IN ALL OF MADRID that I have EVER found that SELLS SOY ICE CREAM!!!!! Sorry to assault you with caps. Soja sin azucar is "soy without sugar." Now, I don't care much for the "no sugar" aspect. Really, me da igual (5). But I looked at the guy with a suspicious smile and asked, "Seriously? Is this ice cream made without milk?" And he answered, "Yes, and all of these as well," with a sweeping motion of his hand, indicating nearly half of the flavor selection. "The cinnamon, too?!!" I asked, barely able to comprehend what I was hearing. "Yep, the cinnamon, too." For a few seconds, I was without words. He asked me if I was okay. "Yes, it's just... it's like a half-miracle. I... I almost can't believe it. I haven't found soy ice cream anywhere else in Madrid. Heck, I can't even find it in ice cream places in the US usually." He looked at me and smiled, "Pues, chica... aprovéchalo (6). What flavors can I get you?"

The best part of this conversation was that I got to use my new favorite language construction: medio + noun/adjective. It makes me feel like I know what I'm talking about. Medio milagro = half-miracle.

"I can't even find ice cream places that sell soy ice cream in Boston!" I exclaimed to my friends when I made it outside. "Well, I guess you'll just have to move to Madrid, then," one told me. I guess that's as good a reason as any.

Ha. Just kidding, Mom. Juuuuuust kidding.

Kristy Spanglish/Other Translation Guide
(1) "as much because of the people as because of the city itself." Is it weird that I can't figure out how to accurately phrase that in English?
(2) conseguir = find, obtain; novio = boyfriend
(3) I've been teaching the entirety of the non-English-speaking world about the word wicked and our love affair with it in Boston/New England.
(4) There is no difference.
(5) I couldn't care less.
(6) Well, girl... take advantage of this.

Eres un bombón...

I've heard a lot of funny pickup lines, but this one really made me laugh. Two nights ago as I was walking home at (I know, I know) 4:30 in the morning from the Metro stop, this Spanish dude pulled towards the sidewalk and rolled down his window. I realize that it's not spectacular to talk to strangers, but at first I thought he was going to ask me for directions (which I would have answered with, "Sorry, I don't know the area that well"). But instead, he asked me where I was going. A casa, I told him, starting to walk away. Eres un bombón, he told me, and then held up a joint and asked if I'd like to hang out with him for a smoke. I politely declined the invitation, said goodnight and continued on my way. I enjoyed being called a "chocolate candy," however.

Doesn't Ricky Martin have a "shake your bombón" song? He might, now that I think about it. No, wait, it's "shake your bon-bon." My mistake.

Below, is a picture of me in all of my "bombón-ness" underneath a Magnolia tree in Madrid. Apparently they are living fossils. They evolved before bees were around. I had no idea these things were so genetically solid. Way to go, Magnolias!

Also, I'm quite excited by this Metro ad (below). It makes me smile every time I see it: "Alicia. Teacher of young children. She's always the first to arrive to class."

That's me. Also, this chica has some seriously awesome style. She's gotta be the cool teacher. Some of the other ads show her very, very cool lace-up boots.

Lastly, I was pretty dang psyched to find the same advisory warning on a Spanish cigarette box that I saw on one in Italy. I wanted to compare the two. As you can see, they are very similar. I would undoubtedly find it (1) very easy to understand written Italian if I started learning it, but at the same time (2) terribly confusing to try to remember the which words belonged to which language, once I had to produce something.


I am off today to try to buy some things in the "Taste of America" store. As gifts, that is. I think it may be the only place in Spain that you can buy rootbeer. Or peanut butter. Or Jelly Bellys. :)

Venice Beach Ultimate

Finishing up the story of last weekend: Once I took the train to Venice, I took one of the canal boats to this island called Lido. That's where the beach tournament took place. As the Spaniards I hang out with already had all of the slots filled for their team, I was on the pick up team, which consisted of a couple of American (USA) girls, some dudes from France, a guy from Belgium, at least a couple of Italians, and probably someone else that I am forgetting. This was my team.

How we were able to communicate at all was semi-miraculous. It was largely thanks to the great lengths that Europeans go to to learn English. It makes me feel very fortunate, mostly. At first, we had to get used to each other. Then, little by little, we started feeling and playing like an actual team. The rest of the teams we played against had two main advantages: (1) the advantage of having played together for awhile for months or years and (2) the advantage of all speaking a common language. Cheers and instructions from our sideline came in many colors and languages. At the end of one of our games, our elected "speech giver" was asked to give the end-of-game speech in French. I understood about ten percent of it. Or less.

This is what Lido looked like (partly), with cute, windy roads:

Most of us rented bikes and rode around the island like that, ringing little bells. Of course, they were old 1950's-style bikes with giant baskets in the front and reaaaaaaally bad brakes. The good news about the bad brakes is that the bike rental did not come with the option of a helmet rental. Everytime a car passed me in transit, I held on tight to the handlebars and sucked my breath in a little bit. Here is me on a bike.

Below, you can see the gorgeous beach we played on. The sand was amazingly soft. Stepping in the sand was like walking through granulated silk. Scorching hot granulated silk.

Did I mention how suffocatingly hot it was in Venice last weekend? I don't believe I did. I just asked one of the guys I'm staying with how many degrees it was when we were there, and I really loved his answer: Ehhhhh... trienta y bastante. Which translates roughly to "thirty degrees and some unnecessarily high number in the ones place" or "dude, it was hotter than it needed to be." For the "metric impaired" (and I know I certainly am), thirty-five degrees Celcius is about ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. Now, ninety-five degrees in Madrid is pretty tolerable, what with the air being very dry and all, but keep in mind that Venice is on the water. So the humidity "adds ten degrees" as my friend over here commented, but as he was talking in metric degrees, perhaps we can assume that it felt like it was one-hundred ten degrees. It did, I assure you. It was one of those lovely climates in which the only relief is a shower, a swim in the ocean, or a leisurely dip in a plastic kiddie pool with seven members of Madrid's ultimate team (true story). And once out of the shower/ocean/kiddie pool, there is never the luxury of drying off. Even if the water eventually evaporates, it is replaced by sweat.

So I spoke English most of the weekend, unfortunately... but I had some opportunities to utilize the Spanish at Saturday night's tournament dinner and after-party. I'd tell you what kind of nonsense my crazy Spaniard friends provoked at aforementioned party, but I'll leave you wondering. Because it's more fun that way. I will say, however, that the limbo was involved.


When all was said and done, I left Lido and returned to the Venice "mainland" I guess you could call it. I spent a full twenty-four hours with my new friend from Colombia, during which, I was babbling on and on in Spanish, and wishing it had been like that all vacation. We stayed in the house of a really sweet Spanish couple (also in their twenties) who were living for a year in Venice. This is a picture of the downstairs of their house.

There, we hung up all of our wet things to dry for the night, all sat down at the red and white checkered table cloth, and ate dinner. This was one of the precious times this trip when I have been "in the groove." I was following normal-speed, slang-filled, conversation with four native Spanish speakers. Not only was I understanding everything, but I was participating like a normal human being, and even joking around. And they were laughing! Not at me either, but with me. I love those moments. I wish I could bottle them and let them out the next time I trip all over a verb conjugation and feel bad about myself.

Okay, I think that's all. Tomorrow, I'll have to write about today.

La Katarsis del Tomatazo: Spanish Theatre

Last night I went to the theatre. The Spanish theatre, to be exact. "Have you ever been to the theatre here before?" my new friend asked me. "Nope," I said. Maybe more appropriately, he should have asked me if I'd ever been to a theatre in which I got to throw produce at the actors. My answer still would have been "no," but how often do you get to ask that question, really?

My new friend (who happens to be German), his roommate (who happens to be Cuban, I think), and I (who happen to not be Spanish either) went to a production called La Katarsis del Tomatazo. If I really fully understood the name of the comedy troop or if I understood more of the skit explaining the name, I would elaborate. Unfortunately, I don't understand much more than the fact that tomatazo is the opposite of a diminutive form for tomato... and thus indicates the noun form of something grand-scale that involves tomatoes.

Yes, we got to throw tomatoes.

We had the option to either applaud at the end of some skits or to throw tomatoes. Since I didn't understand many of the skits, I just threw tomatoes. At one point, my German friend turned to me and said, "Don't worry, I only understand 70 percent of this." I maybe understood the other 30 percent. Our native Spanish-speaking counterpart, on the other hand, was laughing like crazy at about just everything. Sigh. Comedy. It's the hardest part about learning a language, so they say.

El botellón

So... thanks to a younger friend of mine in his early twenties, I got to really understand the full Spanish nightlife experience. Last night, I was privy to watching the non-tourist activities that occur on Friday and Saturday nights in Madrid. Apparently, it's quite the phenomenon, and it's called el botellón. Wikipedia defines it in the following way:

Botellón (Spanish for Big bottle) is a social activity among Spain’s youth, who gather in public areas to consume alcohol as an alternative to going to a bar or club.

"Wow, this could never happen in the States... " I commented to my 23 year-old madrileño friend as I observed a park-full of young people gathered with plastic cups and their beverages of choice. "Bueno, es prohibido..." he answered me. Prohibited. Apparently, if the police show up (and they did), participants simply have to get up and move (a slow meander is sufficient) to another spot... as if the police are sheep herders. But instead of sheep, they are herding inebriated teenagers and twenty-somethings.

If you are curious about el botellón, you can visit the Wikipedia page. If you're not, you can just take my word for it. It looked more or less like a tailgate party in a parking lot. But without grilled food. Or cars. Or old dudes with beer guts. And it was a plaza instead of a parking lot. Not sure if that helped. I guess my only complaint would be that the participants of el botollón don't tend to clean up after themselves too well (see picture below).


This photo was taken in 2005, when my (then) roommate and I made fun of the trashy state of the park near our house on a Saturday morning. Haha. Now I know why.

And, in the true spirit of el botellón, I am taking a "plastic cup half-full" approach to analyzing the whole evening:

1. I was allowed a glimpse into true Spanish "youth" culture.
2. Given my surroundings, I was able to practice my Spanish with kids who threw around a LOT of slang and didn't always slow down for me to process it. Halfway into the evening, it felt like my own speech was flowing out of me like a river.
3. No one I hung out with last night actually knew how close to the brink of thirty I was. When my friend and I asked one of his friends to guess, his friend looked at me, " I give you... twenty-five years... but that's on the high end. Probably less." The next words out of my mouth may or may not have been the Spanish equivalent to, "You're my new best friend."

I think I might go to the store now. I ran out of leche de soja, and that's kind of a vegan crime. I will finish my Italy saga and include some nice pictures. Soon.

Adventures with Italian... and, as always, Spanish

Part 2: Milan

After a rather uneventful (and happily so) flight to Milan, I was at last in Italy. I took a bus ride to the central bus station, and talked to an Italian who knew neither English nor Spanish. It was tricky, but Spanish served me well. I was able to ask him questions in Spanish and he was able to answer in Italian. Pretty awesome. That's what I was hoping would happen.

I decided to catch a later train to Venice so that I could wander around and pretend that I was Italian for awhile. Thankfully, the "looking Italian" part went pretty well, as I have that genetic advantage of having Italian descendants on my mother's side of the family. Check. What usually thwarts such illusions is the fact that when I open my mouth, the language I'm most likely to speak is not Italian. Sure, I know some words and phrases like molto bene! and ciao and grazie, along with foods like linguine, spaghetti, ravioli, etc... but those are not likely to sustain me in any situation except for buying pasta in an Italian supermarket.

I talked to as many Italian people as I could, always asking first if they spoke Spanish because... boy do I hate letting people hear me use English! I don't know... I guess it's just a part of me that wants people to see that, although my language is not perfect, I am putting in the effort. I always feel that, as an American, I have to represent my people well. I want other people to say, "Hey, maybe all Americans aren't bad after all... that one was trying really hard to speak our language." We (native English speakers) have the luxury of having the world at our fingertips. We don't have to learn other languages. We let other people learn ours. I like to struggle through to show that I appreciate how much work the rest of the world does to bend over backwards to talk to us. Anyway, enough of my soapbox rant... I had a few people thinking that I was a Spaniard... including two native Spanish speakers from the Dominican Republic that I later met at the train station when I bought my tickets.

Here is a picture of the first place I stopped in... a little Milano cafe with a sign bragging of soymilk accommodations in their caffeinated beverages. Be still my beating vegan heart.


Then I stopped at a bookstore to enjoy their air conditioning and found a few gems:


Diary of a Wimpy Kid! Apparently schiappa (skee-AH-pah)** is someone who is incompetent. Not a direct translation, but pretty fun. Love it.


Then I happened upon this book, which, to my best knowledge, is entitled "Vegetables: Cooked and Raw." Now, all was going just fine, each page with a giant picture of a vegetable, until I turned to this page. The pages went something like this: Carrot, tomato, artichoke...squid? What?! I wish I had been able to read it to see the justification for such an obvious blunder. Last I checked, squid was filed away under "c" for "certainly not a vegetable." Apparently, according to Italians, I am wrong.

More to come. Ciao!

**Thank you to my friend Justin for steering me correctly on my Italian pronunciation.