Rat tails, Dogs and the Mediterranean Diet

So I think the thing that most disgusts me about Spain is the men's hairstyles. Nobody wears a beard but a lot of guys, especially more in the teenage years, insist on having these nasty growths on the back of their head. I mean, really, the first guy I had a crush on in FIRST GRADE had a rat tail. Just snip it off and get it over with. Especially the little strings of hair, not in the center of their neck, but on the side, by the ear. Ugh, gross. And what's worse is their friends who have the mullet going on. No, not like slight mullage, I mean fully out head shaved everywhere but a bundle of flowing locks down the back. How can their girlfriends tolerate, or heaven forbid, even enjoy that?

The other thing that I hate are these nasty little dogs here. Everyone has one. I walk down the street and see little hairy rats being literally dragged by their owners because their legs are too small to keep up. I shudder at the thought. A couple of times I've seen beautiful Labradors and huskies and I long to scratch behind their ears (is that weird?) but most of the time it's just little yippy goblins with saggy eyes and hair all over the place.

Anyway, enough about what I don't like, what I do like is the food. It is said the mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world and I believe it. One girl in the program commented "When I see something I've never eaten before, I'm not afraid to try it because I know it's totally organic, not like the artificial chemicals in the U.S." and she was totally right. There are all kinds of weird looking meats in my food but almost all taste wonderful. So far there has been nothing I absolutely hate to eat, although when Alicia (my madre) makes stew there's always this big hunk of unknown meat in it that is mushy and odd...but it's not too bad so I eat it with chunks of potatoes.

But although I like everything I've eaten, it seems like my madre only cycles through maybe 10 or 15 different meals almost all involving white rice that changes colors. Actually now that I think of it, the rice dishes are probably paella...
-white rice with a fried egg and tomato sauce (it's actually really good)
-yellow rice with chicken or other type of meat
-black rice with some type of black sausage
-Sanjacobo (a pre-prepared patty with ham and cheese in the middle)
-Grilled sandwhiches with meat and cheese
-stew, or close to stew, with potatoes & carrots
-chicken noodle soup, brocolli puree, mashed potato puree, some kind of bean soup
-rice with chicken broth

So you can see why I like the food. It's basically meat and rice! And she uses olive oil on everything, as it is the custom here. With every meal I get a plate of salad and for dressing she adds olive oil and salt. I've grown used to it but at first I forced myself to eat it. But besides the entree, salad, and an occasional soup, there's no other side. Oh how I long for actual green beans or broccoli or even squash! What's more, is that my madre makes just enough for each of us. We can't have seconds because she didn't make enough for seconds and there's never leftovers. It's not a big problem because I'm always pretty full after meals.

A couple weeks ago it was Paco's birthday (my padre). The entire family came over: Paquito (the son), his son (Fran, also named Paco but being the 3rd Paco they had to call him something else), Alicia (my madre), and Alicia (the daughter, yes they named their children after themselves). Macarena (Paquito's daughter) came later. Anway, the point is that my madre went all out and did a Spanish meal like it should be. She brought out 5 or 6 plates filled with different types of seafood, put them on the table, and we all reached in the middle and picked our own food with our hands or forks. It was pretty authentic. Enough about food!

What does bother me, by the way, is that whenever I finish a meal and my madre asks me if I want a piece of fruit I almost always do. But the few times I decline an apple, she stops clearing the table and asks me why not. And she says it in a way that's like "What, my apples aren't good enough for you, huh?" and the only reason there is to give is that I'm full, it's after a meal, for goodness' sake! What does she want me to say, "I don't want an apple because I'm afraid I may sprout another head"??? Ridiculous...

I feel like I need to explain the Paco thing real fast, as it is confusing. Francisco is the real name and Paco is a nickname (i forgot why but it has some kind of origin that makes sense). So practically everyone here is named Francisco and we just call them Fran, Paco, or Paquito, as is the case with my family. Other really common names are Jose, Juan, Javier, and Carlos. I just walk around meeting people going "Ohh another Jose. Joy!"

So I ended up going to the Medieval Fair on Sunday. It was pretty cool. There were tons of booths lining the tiny walkways selling jewelry and toys for the most part. I saw some interesting stands that were selling grains for different ailments "asthma, fertility, laryngitis, etc" and I was at a loss of what you would do with it and why you would want to buy it.

They also had these interesting characters that would walk around on stilts and scare people. They wore ogre or devil masks or something and I was thinking "How is that medieval??" There was also this little street parade thing where these men with little elf ears walked around beating drums while a hooded man in black dragged along "prisoners" in chains and pretended to beat them with his whip. Once again I was like "um...relevance? Last time I checked elves didn't populate the earth in the Medieval times..." Haha, even though it was kinda dinky it was pretty funny and it felt like America with all the greasy foods, hehe.

This blog took a long time to write (maybe because I stopped to watch an episode of Private Practice in between). It's almost 1am and I'm ready for bed!!

The update is finally here

wow, where do I start? Let's begin with last night's dinner...
Madre: So valentine's day is this weekend...do you have a boyfriend in the U.S. or here?
Me: No...
Madre: Oh. Well do you think Miquel will ask you to dinner?
Me: No, haha, he has a girlfriend.
Madre: Really? Oh, then what about Carlos?
Me: No, he's really short
Madre: Juan?
Me: No, Juan isn't interested in me.
Madre: What? Why not?
Me: I don't know...
Madre: Well, do you like him?
Me: Yes, as a friend.
Madre: Oh...well I'm sure someone will ask you to dinner.
Me: I'm not sure I want to go to dinner with someone. What does that mean for the relationship?
Madre: It's just dinner! You can go with a bunch of friends, I suppose. Well, whatever. I'm sure someone will give you a flower.
Me: Thanks...

I felt like it was the Harfords drilling me about boys again, except my madre was completely serious and there wasn't Mr. Jimmy in the background making embarrassing comments. :-O

Speaking of holidays, the Spanish version of Halloween, called Carnaval is next weekend the 21st (day after my birthday!). Apparently it is quite a big deal and the town goes crazy all week. My padres told me it was a real masquerade, like covering the face and everything. They said I could buy a costume for 3 euros so I'm going with my madre to the market tomorrow.

It seems like holidays in Spain is not advertised much, but it's celebrated seriously. Like Valentine's day. There are a couple of signs in the windows of perfume shops or lingerie stores advertising it, but in general, there's not a huge pink & red chocolate section of every store I go in like there is in the U.S. And Carnaval, too. I didn't even here about it until the beginning of February and didn't know the date until last Monday. But I'm sure when the day actually comes they will go absolutely mad in celebration. Everyone knows it's coming, but they don't advertise it. Halloween in the States starts selling costumes in September. You have to live under a rock to not know it's coming.

I've been noticing the ways in which I act differently in a Spanish speaking country. For instance, every time I am walking around in the city and I hear an English speaking voice, I immediately look around, searching for the speaker, as if the fact that they speak my language binds makes us instant friends.

In addition, when I'm in the States around a bunch of strangers, I try to make friends with those I think I will like and those that are like me. There are so many cliques that I can choose from: do I want to spend time with this group or this group, etc...
Here, all of my Spanish friends are people that made an effort to talk to me. Does that make sense? I don't care which kind of group they belong to. The fact that they want to talk to me and hang out with me makes them my friends, regardless of whatever clique they are or are not part of.

This week was obviously not memorable because I can't remember what I did. I had the latin dance class that ended on Thursday. The lessons were really basic and when we start dancing informally it's not gonna matter if we missed one of the turns, but it was fun anyway. I feel like if you just give me an open floor and put some music on, I will be as extroverted as ever. I was goofing around so much that it brought back memories of JoAnne's ballet class. My dance partner thought I was funny, at least. The teacher, Pilar, asked me to dance with them in a competition at the University and I was like "Heck yeah, that would be so cool" until I found out it was for a modern style dance. I can attempt ballet, and I can try at Latin, but modern dancing just isn't for me, so I turned it down as politely as I could, trying to explain that my body just can't move that way.

Wednesday I hung around school until 7 for chorus and meanwhile we did an intercambios event where Spanish students learning English came and talked with us: They spoke in English & we in English. I met 2 girls that laughed all the time and we exchanged numbers. One could barely speak English. The sad part is that they go home for the weekends, which is far away, so I won't be able to spend any time with them.

Last Thursday (a week ago) was so much fun. I ran into Lucas & Terol and their friends and we spent the evening together with some other american girls. So I hoped the same thing would happen last night...but it didn't. I was pretty bored. I saw Lucas today on the street and asked him about going to see his band practice, because that was going to be the highlight of my weekend, but he said they probably won't practice tomorrow and plus he's going skiing this weekend so I won't see him again. It made me very disappointed but luckily I have other Spanish friends to see (I hope).

After this weekend I will have more to write about. I'm going to a nearby town called Orihuela to go to their Medieval Festival! And seeing as next weekend is Carnaval I'll have even more to recount...and the next weekend we go to Madrid for the weekend!!! Whoo. I don't know what I'm going to do in between! Can I just say Homework stinks?

So story: Last Monday I was with Miquel and his friend Pablo. We were walking on the street and I saw 2 little wrapped sweets on the ground by the dumpster...and I picked them up. At the time Miquel laughed at me and called me a gypsy. And yeah, looking back on that, I realize that was a very stupid thing to do.

They were kind of good, though. I'll let you know if I die.

So much to say!

I will try to sum up Ireland in a couple of paragraphs. I am so glad I went even though it was less than 48 hours. We had a group of 14 people but 2 did their own thing and the rest split up into 2 groups of 6. We had a very odd experience Friday night. When we got there around 10pm, we went to a restaurant that was just about to close, but the manager took us in anyway and fed us all these amazing hamburgers and gave us all free Guinness glasses, as my first Ireland souvenir. We went out to the oldest pubs in town called the Temple Bar area, with authentic cobblestone streets. It was freezing! We didn´t stay there for long because there were a ton of French there due to the French-Irish Rugby match (which is a big deal). The French were very strange, being a tad obsessed with feet. One guy stole the shoe of a girl in our group, sniffed it, poured beer into it and drank...weird. So that was our first night in Ireland. It is soo expensive. Our hotel was on the outskirts of town and it cost 50 euros for 6 of us to ride back in a taxi.

The next day was so awesome, though. While one group spent 4 hours in the Guinness factory (ridiculous), our group took a tour bus ALL over town, seeing cathedrals and going shopping. It was so neat. We stopped by the Guinness factory and took a tour, since that´s the thing to do in Dublin and at the top got a free glass of genuine Guinness. That night, we met up with the guys we met in Alicante that happened to live in Dublin and they took us to all the good places. We ended up crashing at their house for the night and in the morning caught the plane back. What a crazy time.

So that´s the news from Ireland, or at least the short version. I will write another blog later to sum up events here in the homeland. I´ve just gotta say, comparing Dublin and Alicante, I have a new appreciation for the price of drinks and transportation, as well as the beautiful weather here and the proximity to the beach. I love Alicante.

Surprise! I'm still alive

Okay, fine! You've twisted my arm. I was planning on giving an update after I go to Dublin this weekend, but now will do just as well, i guess. Let's see. The regular cycle of classes started! That's good news, by the way.

My first class of the week is Civil War. I guess it's alright for a history class. I mean, it's the most interesting class I have so far. Learning about King Alfonso XIII having to protect himself from the outraged public after the economic crisis and losing the war with the U.S., etc...Good stuff.

Next up is Colloquial Spanish. The teacher is really animated and nice, but we do less talking and more worksheets (although we've only had 2 classes) learning about Spanish slang. It's a lot of vocabulary but I'm normally good with retaining info like that. Though I must say we spent a lot of time learning the names of alcoholic drinks...wine & club soda, medium beer, large beer, whiskey and ice, etc.

On Tuesdays I take the Feminine Literature class, which is the most difficult, I think. In class the teacher went really fast over the powerpoint because it was already written in our books but that requires self-study (boo). I don't like it because #1 I hate criticizing literature in general and #2 I could care less about the female writers.

If anyone were to ask me how I'm spending my afternoons after school, I wouldn't know what to tell them. I spend a lot of time on the computer because there's simply nothing else to do. Whenever I go home, my padres are always watching boring TV shows, so I pull out my cell phone and play the sudoku game on it. Because if I go in my room and do something productive, I'll look like a hermit, and if I sit and watch soccer all day, I'll pull my hair out.

I've been meeting some really really cool people lately. On Saturday my normal friends weren't around so I stuck by some guys I barely knew (don't worry, the Americans were very close by) and through them I met a ton of other people. It was someone's birthday and nobody wanted the cake...well, hehe, I only ate a couple bites but it was amazing. There were so many people I'm surprised the cake wasn't gone in 30 seconds.

On Friday, I saw a Spanish helper from the program that I met the first week and she said "Laura come here! These guys are learning English and they need to practice!" So I met like 5 guys at once and they were sooo nice. They have a band and invited me to watch them practice one weekend. I was gonna go this weekend but I forgot I was going to Dublin. And don't worry, I'm bringing American girls with me.

So Dublin: we will see about that. My madre was asking me how I would get to the airport and where we would be staying. I had no clue, so I asked my friends who were going....and they don't know either. So as long as we stick together it'll be a heck of an adventure. On that note (hehe) last night we ran into some guys from Dublin that were visiting a friend. They sang some Irish drinking songs and it was so cool that I videotaped one (facebook). They were giving us tips on things to do in Dublin. Apparently the most famous thing to do is take a tour of the Guinness beer factory, because that's the first thing that each of them suggested.

I am so glad I'll be feeling well by the time Dublin comes along. Starting last Wednesday, I've had nonstop sore throat, and a cough started a couple days ago. Besides that I've been fine. Juan & some other friends have been sick as well. :/
But apart from plaguing my throat, it hasn't affected any other part of my life.

Umm, I'm sorry I don't have any good stories. My friend Miquel is the biggest jerk I've ever met in my life. Besides flirting with every female that comes within reach even though he has a girlfriend, he also made me pay for his drink the other night....but he's the charming jerk that everybody likes. What can I say?

But one of his best friends, Juan, is the nicest Spaniard I know. He's the one that bought us roses and spends time with us even though we're silly Americans and introduces us to all his friends.

Oops, I'm going to chorus now! Last week I met some more german girls and we exchanged numbers. Woo what am I gonna do with all these friends? Well, I guess I may be an extrovert after all...