Day 202: Barcelona

I gotta say, it was really cool landing in Barcelona when any other Sunday I'd still be in my bed, snoozing for another two or three hours! The things you can accomplish when you wake up before noon! But seriously... I literally cannot remember the last Sunday I woke up before noon, much less took a train, metro and plane and ended up in a whole other city before noon!

Our afternoon was filled with checking in, lunch, cupcakes and walking up and down Plaça de Gracia. The absolute best part of the afternoon was totally when we got stuck in the rain on our walk up Las Ramblas. Rain was getting in my boots, despite the big umbrella, and it was starting to get a little bit miserable when, all of a sudden, we started to hear music.

I followed it and, before we knew it, we were standing under an awning, listening to three guys who called themselves the New Orleans Ragamuffins!! Their music was so great and peppy that I forgot all about the rain and - after a few songs, the rain even seemed to get into the vibe and stopped altogether! :) The whole time they played, I was tapping my foot along, occasionally breaking out into a little jig. Almost twenty minutes later, I still didn't want to leave and my desire to full out dance had grown so strong that I handed Dad my camera and pressed the record button.

And that's the story of why I now have a video of myself doing the Charleston in the rain to a ragtime band on the streets of Barcelona! ;)

Only me...

A few people started clapping for me when I finished, which made me giggle, rather embarrassed, and made the decision to finally leave easier. :-P

XOXO

Day 201: Toledo

Today my American dad got to meet my Spanish mom and dad! ^_^ Yay!

The four of us spent the day in Toledo, visiting the gorgeous cathedral, walking around the tiny cobblestone streets, visiting super old synagogues, stopping for a really yummy lunch at an Arabic restaurant and finishing the excursion with a tea at the hotel across the river with gorgeous views of Toledo as the sunset and it began to rain.

I hadn't seen my Spanish parents in two months and it was so nice to spend a whole day with them. I always love being around them, but I especially love going on excursions with them! :) They're so adorable and funny and knowledgeable - like, they always know the regional sweets of wherever we go, and they always buy a lot of it for us to eat throughout the day!! ;)

What was different about being with them today, though, was that I had to play interpreter for nearly 10 straight hours. Holy crap. By the end of the day, a normal person would have been tired after all the walking and exploring... But add in all of the brain power required to go between Spanish and English and translate and interpret... I was flat out pooped by the time I got home!!

Summer of 2011 I undoubtedly spoke Spanish with much more fluency and less mistakes, as I was always using the language - at home, at school, etc. - than I do now. BUT my auditory comprehension of Spanish is currently the best it has ever been. I attribute this to two things: 1) Hearing my students speaking to each other quickly in Spanish when they think I can't understand them / When they always ask me "How do you say.... in English?" 2) The sheer amount of gossip that goes on at the teachers' lunch table - all in extremely rapid and colloquial Spanish. I've had it happen one too many times that I am more or less following the juicy story and then they get to the kicker and I can't understand the key words and am left wondering what the heck happened!! It is exactly like how I motivated Sam to read English quickly when he was 6 and told me he couldn't really read at all. Woody and I would IM and he would see his name and that we were talking about him and so he would use all of his brain capacity to keep up with our rapid chat and read it all. :) I am that same way during lunch, only they aren't talking about me, but students I have and want to know the latest on!

During the day, I could totally tell how much my auditory comprehension had improved since Grandma had visited and I'd had to play interpreter for just a night. I didn't ever have to think twice before interpreting, and I can't remember the last time I was so awesomely mentally stimulated! :)

Anyway, our day together visiting the Toledo Cathedral, walking around, having a delicious Arabic lunch and finishing the day overlooking the city and relaxing with tea and cookies was awesome! The cutest part was when my Spanish dad told my American dad that I was a very determined and tenacious young lady. :) Adorable!

All in all, a lovely day!
XOXO

Day 200: Dad in Madrid

I got into Madrid at 12 noon and got back to Alcala at 12 midnight. Needless to say, it was a very full day of exploration! Although my dad flew into Madrid and will be flying out of Madrid, he only really has one full day in the city, and so I tried to fit in all that I possibly could into that day. It sounds kinda crazy, but I did the same thing with Scott when he was here and Maite when she was here... so I'm actually getting pretty pro at it all. ;)

The top three highlights of the day were:

1) Mercado de San Miguel
Dad LOVED it, as I'd knew he would. We spent almost two hours there, perusing all of the food and drink - and eating and drinking, too! I had a great salmon basil tosta, along with a yummy vermouth and a dulce de leche macaroon for dessert!

2) Salvador Bachiller
I took dad into my favorite luggage/bag store just because it was next to our next destination of the afternoon and walked out with a new carry on! YAY! ^_^ I honestly don't know why I never thought about it... but having a duffel bag as my carry on when I'm traveling for a week or two is sort of ridiculous. I have to carry it everywhere and it gets really heavy and cumbersome, and I get really tired and can't move very quickly. Their carry on size bags were 50% off, and so Dad got me one for our trip! So excited!! This shall revolutionize the way I travel around Europe. ;)

3) El Baile Tapas Bar
Dad said he was getting hungry, so we ducked into a random tapas bar. The man behind the counter was about dad's age and a very Spanish fellow. As we were the only ones there, the man started talking to us... and after he realized I could understand him and he could understand me, he didn't stop talking to us until almost an hour and a half later. We'd ordered a small beer each, a chorizo tapa and a mushroom tapa when we sat down. By the time we left, we'd each had three beers, two glasses of Moscatel, tapas, jamon serrano, and two rounds of dessert - he literally just kept putting food and drinks in front of us... even before we'd finished the last one! In the end, the grand total came to 7 euro for everything. Holy crap. It was really more food than a full meal, and enough alcohol to get me sufficiently tipsy-drunk. >_< Dad loved the whole thing and felt it was a very "authentic" cultural experience. I couldn't opine, because I was trying hard not to look intoxicated as I got up! HA!

XOXO

Day 199: Dad Goes to School

I woke up at 6:30 in the city, quickly got ready and made my way to the metro. The metro was on strike for the morning, which meant it was running with minimum service. I had two metro transfers until I got to the airport and was nervous I would arrive way late, but as it turned out, I still managed to arrive a good fifteen minutes before my dad got through customs!

I listened to the other American girls my age waiting for their parents, too, and tried my best to disassociate with them. ;) We learned in class last weekend about some psychological term for "positive face" and "negative face" and how cultures deal with them differently. In America, for example, there is a certain social supposition that by interacting with another individual you are invading their personal space and thus you need to act very overly nice to make sure you don't bother them too much. In contrast, Spanish culture has the supposition that everybody is on an equal level to everyone else, so you can more or less act real with them, as if they were just another friend or colleague of yours. This can be seen in a bar where an American would say, "May I have a beer, please?" whereas a Spanish person would simply say, "Gimme a beer." When she presented this notion, I sorta thought she was full of it, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. And those girls at the airport were a perfect example; they were chatting on and on about how inconvenient the metro strike was that morning and where they lived and how they got to the airport. But it was all so overly animated and fake. A group of Spanish girls in that situation probably would have just made a sincere, one sentence complaint about it and move on. Sheesh. Spanish people feel little desire to be super fake to impress other people. This is why I like them. ;)

Anyway, in no time dad and I were on the train to school, me talking his ear off and him looking out the window like a wide-eyed puppy. Ha! His first comment was about how surprised he was that there were so many apartment buildings but no houses. And it's true - houses don't exist in Madrid. The closest you'll come to a house is a quadraplex of condos, but those are usually just for families fairly well off. But after having lived in Spain for 10 months in total, a lot of these "strange" things have utterly ceased to seem out of the ordinary to me.

I'm really excited to hear everything else that seems different to him here that I've totally stopped noticing! :) It's just so difficult for me to grasp that this is his first time here and everything is completely new and foreign... Because it all feels so much like home to me. But at the same time, it's a really exhilarating feeling to realize how I've really made a life for myself in a foreign country in a foreign language and with a foreign culture... And gotten so immersed in it all that it feels completely familiar as if I'd always been surrounded by these things.

Two and a half hours after he'd landed in Madrid and we were at my school! It was way surreal to have him there - school is one of those things that's like an entirely separate world for me that nobody that knows me has ever entered before. Sometimes I feel like I am living a bunch of different little lives, and when two of them happen to coincide for a moment, it is the strangest feeling!! :) But it was awesome having him at school!!

I'd talked up his visit for a whole week and by this point, it was all every single kid in primary could talk about. Teachers were texting me, asking me when my father would be coming to their classroom, because the students were getting restless! Teachers were stopping me in the hall, begging me to visit their classroom next. Basically, Dad was the school celebrity of the day - and it was adorable!

I'd asked him to bring candy for the kids, and he took my request super seriously! He'd brought a Costco bag of peanut butter cups and DumDums, as well as a box of toffee just for the teachers! :) I'd sort of thought all the kids would care about would be the big bags of candy in his arms, but they all were actually super interested in him and asked him all sorts of questions, full of excitement and enthusiasm to get a turn to speak with him. :) Adorable! I felt kinda bad dragging him from room to room to perform like a show pony, but despite being a bit jet-lagged, Dad seemed to be loving it all as much as the kids were! ^_^ He answered all their questions with a big smile on his face and passed out candy to 200 kids throughout the day. When we went to and from the cafeteria, a bunch of kids waved at him and yelled, "Hi, Dan!!!" grinning from ear to ear.

The cutest parts of his visit were the following:

1) When Laura's 3rd graders stood up as if they were going to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and then burst out in a rousing rendition of 50 Nifty United States! Omg! They did a great job and I didn't even know Laura had been working on it with them!! It was super cute and Dad (and, perhaps even more so myself!) was super impressed!

2) When the 1st graders all whipped out their homework from their desk - which was to write and draw my dad a Welcome note - in exchange for a DumDum! Their pictures were the most adorable things ever - as was their bubbly excitement. <3

3) When the question from the students that most stumped my dad was, "What's your favorite animal?" Ha! He had to think about it before answering that it was probably a tiger. :) Cute.

4) When we saw my Bachi Boys and Pineapple outside during recess and hung out and chatted with them for a little while! Yay!! ^_^ My dad was way impressed with their English fluency, but even more impressed by our rapport. As we walked away from them, he told me how amazed he was by how well I was able to relate to them and understand them... and how much they seemed to like me. :) I seriously adore them and think it is so funny when they say other teachers get upset with them, because I can't understand it. I would gladly teach my Bachi Boys and Pineapple English, Spanish and whatever else I would be fairly knowledgeable in and get their grades up in no time simply by motivating them through being real with them instead of talking down to them. Too bad I couldn't drop some of the other classes I don't like half as much and spend extra time with them. Ha.

5) When (and this is the coolest one) Dad met the director of the entire school in the hallway and they had a mini chat! First, it had been long wondered by just about every teacher at that school (and especially myself) as to whether the director spoke English very well or not. Despite the fact his first words to my dad were, "I'm sorry my English is not very good..." he actually spoke very well!! He went on to tell my dad that everybody at the school absolutely loved me and be congratulated my dad on having such a wonderful daughter. Omg!!! Most adorable thing ever!! And coming from the director of the school - whose opinion everybody seems to take quite seriously - I felt rather honored. :) What was even better was that he said all this while dressed in one of his typical suits, but today had on a yellow tie with tiny, mint colored elephants all over it. Um, dashing. ;)

After an exciting and eventful day at school, dad took a nap while I tended to a small bit of work and later we explored Alcalá. A brief tour later and we were off to Madrid to get him checked into his hotel and to go to dinner where we'd made reservations at paella restaurant- which turned out to be very fancy, indeed! They literally chilled a bottle of white wine for us in one of those little metal stand things with ice and a bit cloth napkin. O_O Whoa! The paella was really yummy and everybody talked to me only in Spanish (which is a serious rarity here, actually). It was by far the fanciest meal I've ever had in Spain and I had a great time living the life of a foodie again. :)

XOXO

Day 198: Onion & Frost

I have been so excited all day! I helped translate documents at school on my free hour. I got a long overdue doctor check up like a responsible person - and all in Spanish! ;) I got defuzzed. I ate a million bowls of cereal. I giggled a bunch more with my sick little Abby. And then, before I knew it, I was off to H's to play "pretend I have an apartment in the city"!! ^_^

So awesome.

As I type this, my dad is on a plane to come visit me and I'm too excited to sleep... Hence catching up on my blog posts until 1 am! >_< I have to be up before 6 am to get ready and head to the airport... Bah!

Anyway, I read this article posted on Facebook as I was coming into the city tonight and thought it was totally perfect to post in my blog. The satirical article points out how few people there are that are really living their dream life... But all the article did for me was make me feel so lucky to be living a life that actually is pretty darned close to mine!

I remember when I was 19 and I worked at Quad/Graphics in 12 hour shifts from 7-7, three or four days a week, on top of my other job at the pizza restaurant! It was hard manual labor in a loud, cold, concrete factory... And I was surrounded by people whose who families worked there, and who'd all worked there for decades. The monotony of the job was often overwhelming and it took all the creativity I had in me to stay mentally afloat and lots of promises of "you can eat anothern poptart when the minute hand reaches the '9,' which will signal we are 33.33% closer to being home to keep up the internal moral 12 hours shift after 12 hour shift.

My grandma knew how much I disliked it, and it made her very pleased. "After seeing people who have lived this life for decades... After you experience it yourself... After this summer... You will never take your education and your opportunities for granted again. At the young age of 19 you'll have had a peek into what kinds of lives many people find themselves stuck in, and you will never let that happen to yourself. Ever."

And boy was she right.

I see my friends my age getting married and having babies and looking for stable careers and all I can think of is that summer at Quad/Graphics. Perhaps I come across as extremely immature to the rest of the "normal" world, but I'm willing to take that "road less traveled." Not to sound corny and trite, but I do truly believe it will "make all the difference." :-P

Without further adieu, the Onion article:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionate-about-then-do,31742/

XOXO

Day 197: Friends Again!

Great news! Nacho and I finally seem to be friends again!! ^_^

This morning his mom informed me that she had a meeting after school, but that his dad would come and pick us up and take us home, so the she wouldn't have to cancel the class. She told me to meet them in front after school, and that she'd tell Nacho not to leave without me. :)

A few hours later and it was recess time. As I was walking back from the cafeteria, Nacho RAN up to me and repeated everything his mom had already told me with great exigency - only difference was that she'd told me in Spanish and he told me in superb English!! :) Aww!!

My last hour of the school day happens to be with Nacho on Tuesdays. Class went as usual, and when I went to say goodbye at the end of class, Nacho jumped out of his chair and told me not to forget to meet him in FRONT of the school in ten minutes. He really took this whole responsibility very seriously and was doing a great job with it!

Ten minutes later, as I walked out front I expected to see is dad waiting for me, but instead I found Nacho standing on the front steps, not running around with his friends, not hanging onto his dad, not playing soccer, but instead looking out in all directions for me in the slight drizzle of rain! Omg! <3

As I walked with them to the car, I got stopped by two moms, one asking if I could give her private conversation lessons on Mondays, and one asking if I could do a make up lesson for the one her son missed. Holy muffins, I felt so popular and in demand! Haha. ;) I told Nacho that, jokingly, when it was just him and me walking again, and he giggled. Ha!

The car ride home might have been the cutest part of the whole day though (besides Nacho's fashion show of his mom's clothes after he got bored with our play dough games): the whole drive home Nacho chattered away, clearly excited his dad was there to pick him up, which is always a special treat. But he also seemed excited I was coming along, too. See, when I'd asked him what was wrong a few weeks ago when he was acting so strange, he told me he didn't want me coming over anymore because every time I did, his mom got mad at him. He's only six, so telling him correlation doesn't prove causation was not going to solve anything. ;) So when I was coming over, but this time with his very cheerful, sweet and even tempered dad, it was back to happy Nacho as normal.

Anyway, yes, the car ride. Nacho talked the whole drive... But the amazing part was his incredible code switching. Talking to Dad? Spanish. Talking to Chelsea? English. It was automatic. And they weren't even separate thoughts... But the same thoughts, just parts directed at his dad and some at me. At the end of the car ride his dad told Nacho he was going to have to start taking classes with me, cause he couldn't understand everything we were saying! Nacho laughed and informed him adults couldn't take English classes - especially not while playing at home. Haha!!! ^_^

XOXO

Day 196: No School Monday!

I lazily got up, realizing it would be the last morning I got to really sleep in until April 7th! Each time I'd start to think about rolling out of bed, this thought would pop back into my head and I'd close my eyes again, guilt free. ;)

By the time I was up and ready, it was late afternoon. I hadn't had an adventure all weekend long... And it seemed like a total waste of a three day weekend to continue sitting around, generally doing nothing... So I got my lazy butt out the door and onto the train!

My afternoon in Madrid was very carefree. I had nowhere I needed to be and no time at which I ad to be there. And so I did what I love doing the most - I just began to wander, looking at the city glistening in the sunshine with fresh, free eyes. After living somewhere for awhile - even somewhere that a year or two ago would have seemed very exotic - you start to take it for granted. Not on purpose, and not in a cruel way - just in the way that you are using the city as a means to an end, rather than just enjoying it for itself. And so, it is important to take those lazy, solo afternoons to rediscover it and get lost on little charming streets you've never seen before, or try a new blood orange juice at Mercado San Miguel, or figure out which neighborhood you were enchanted by a few weeks ago and how to get there on foot instead of by metro without cheating. :) A city that once seemed so big and foreign starts to feel like home - a home you really cherish and feel lucky to live in - when you start doing this. <3

I once read about a city walking meditation - where you take in everything around you and then focus on super tiny parts of the city (a crack in a building, a sticker behind a sign far out of sight, an old roof of a church). It has the most charming ability to center a girl and make her both feel like an important part of something great and like a very, very tiny being in comparison!

XOXO