Last moments in Madrid

I have mixed feelings about leaving. I'm tired, I've gone out every night this week and am sleep deprived. I am sad to leave my friends, terrified of how I'm going to feel when it really hits me that I can't jump on the metro and go to Aluche.

I have only had bad interactions with Spaniards in the last couple of days. I shared an elevator with our new neighbors last night and instead of introducing themselves they demanded to know if I was a smoker. She's pregnant. What a lovely goodbye for me, being accused of killing an unborn baby in the last civilized country to allow smoking in public. Seriously, you can't even smoke in the bars in Amsterdam anymore! The fact that they pardoned me was no consolation.

That has been the worst thing-I feel like this city is kicking me out. I was literally woken up by the roommate who will take my place this morning. I'm sitting on the couch with my luggage. I keep trying to figure out what the one thing is I want to spend my last 20 minutes doing, and all I can think about is taking a nap.

Giessen, I hope you are sympathetic.

The trucking strike is apparently still on.

Just now, in the midst of a well-warranted study frenzy I realized I don't have any notes over one of the poets I'm being tested over tomorrow. On my walk to the library I realized how light headed I was from only eating fruit and chips and drinking too much coffee.

So I decided to stop over at the local CarreFour Express and get something to eat. I was also interested to see what was left.

Last night Florian made me some amazing pasta and on limited supplies.

In the fruit section there is a handful of spotted apricots and probably 20 apples (okay, and a ton of ginger).
The fresh fish section is empty and the lights are turned off.
screens are pulled over half of the empty meat section.
There are no vegetables.
There are no eggs.
Milk is getting low, OJ too.
No onions or potatoes.
The sausage section is about half-full.

Yea for bacon and mustard sandwiches?! I'm not as creative as my novio.

Trucking strike!

So, I went to go buy spinach for a salad this weekend. As usual, CarreFour was out. I kind of expected it, they aren't the most reliable with produce. When I went in yesterday, they had no lettuce or salad-making produce at all. This is unprecedented in my year in Madrid. But, in a very untypical fashion, CarreFour had posted a helpful sign explaining the absent produce.

The truck drivers are on strike because of high fuel prices! I expect if I walked into CarreFour this morning the fruit section would be a bit lacking as well.

Fuegos Artificiales!!

Last night we met my friend Megan in Retiro Park for a picnic. A bunch of ERASMUS kids showed up and we had a good time listening to Vincent play the guitar. The weather is finally really nice here! There were cute little Spanish kids dressed up in costumes for the holiday and we saw some bats after the sun set, but clearly the light and firework show was the highlight.
Vale, here we've got a photo of the lovely Anna & friends in the radiance of the explosions. Super cool! Also a still of the lake and some of the first fireworks. The video didn't work, so I threw in another firework picture. Imagine music and explosion sounds!


































We had a big group and got desperately split up in the crowd, but we all met at a cueva in Sol afterwards. I first came to this bar in the fall with Giovanni and couldn't understand any of the quotes on the wall. It was very rewarding to realize how much I have learned this year! Also, John's mom is still in town and I got to talk to her again which was wonderful. And I finally taught Vincent the cup rhythm we've been working on. It was a great night. And I was in bed by 1:30!

I am anything but a madrileña.

Went to Canal today for the first time. One metro stop away from my piso. Anyway, played some padel (I think that's how it is spelled). It is just tennis on a smaller court with smaller rackets. Super fun! Luckily Florian had never played tennis before, so I didn't look like a total idiot, just a bit of one.

Today is another fiesta. This is the first madrileño holiday I actually know something about, though sadly, only the name of the Saint: San Isidro. I get two days off school and all the little girls in my neighborhood are wearing dresses with red flowers on their head. And there are fireworks tonight! I don't get it, but I like it.

Charity

Madrid has quite the homeless population. After reading Irresistible Revolution this fall, sharing makes more sense. I really want to live a life that has community and giving at its core.

Which is great and all...except when I start giving away things that don't belong to me. Florian's food. Florian's money. Florian's sweet comic book in Spanish that we found sitting outside my apartment. And the latest:

Okay, clearly not a tragic loss. First of all, the front wheel was busted. Secondly, well, Florian is a fully grown man.

The convenience store by his apartment is run by an Asian family, like most of the 'alimentaciones'(or 'chinos') in Madrid. Florian tried to ride the bike from the dumpster to the chino. Hilarious!

It was around midnight, but the Asian kids were still up, helping their mom run the store. We bought what we needed at stepped back outside to get the bike and go home. The kids followed us out. The little girl was eying the bike-I don't think she even noticed we were there. I opened my mouth and offered the bike to the girl. She didn't have a clue what I was saying, but her brother immediately said "Sí" and she hopped on.

You should have seen her face! So cute! Hopefully Florian will survive.

Bought some sweet new pants

I'm bummed because I just realized a lot of my friends stopped posting on their blogs. I'm missing out on some good stalking. That said, I haven't been super faithful to this blog in the last couple weeks, so I can't really complain.

The last couple weeks have been mostly about choosing classes, freaking out about all my travel plans coming up and Florian. I'm trying to diversify my interests. Today I bought new pants at H&M and walked around Malasaña, a great bar district I've really only ever seen at night. Tomorrow I'm going to see The Cure!! And then I'm going out to say goodbye to Flo's friend Jenny who is returning to Germany at the end of the week. She laughs at least as often as I do, if not more. She's freaking awesome.

Madrid is treating me pretty well. I've had a few bad moments lately, but I'm trying to remember that sometimes cultural differences just seem like evil people. My professor reprimanded me in class yesterday for eating an orange. Of course, I had no idea what she wanted from me, so we ended up taking about five minutes out of class to discuss my orange and whether or not I could eat it. After class, she explained to me that "in Spain, we finish our food before we come to class." She is actually really atypical of most of the professors I've met. She, for example, actually shows up on time to class. Most of my professors are at least 15 minutes late. Which I love!

Still happy in Spain,
Cass

Noticias madrileñas

Today is my first day back to school. Exams are coming up at the end of this month and the beginning of Feb., so naturally I am in the computer lab updating my blog. It is also the warmest place on campus. I ate some delicious cafeteria tortilla and read the news after my horrendously boring Cervantes lecture. I found out today that I do have to read Don Quixote. Sweet.

Now for the news: The metro cleaners' strike ended today. Which is pretty awesome, because the pile of red-wine tinted vomit at the Quevedo station was starting to gross me out. Plus all the metros were starting to smell like the NYC subways. The question remains: How awful was it to have to clean up a few weeks worth of trash after the strike?

Javier Bardem! Oscar worthy? We say yes! I highly recommend No Country for Old Men (No es país para viejos). It is about an assasin, the man he is chasing and the policeman chasing them both. Lots of people die. It is so choice.

España and the rest of Europe are talking about the primaries. Mostly they are saying what I am: anything will be better (Although I admit, Huckabee freaks me out a bit). In 20 Minutos, the paper I read this morning, they seem pretty excited about Obama. As am I. I haven't heard much about his plans, but as the paper put it, he would change the way the world sees the United States. I think we need that.

There was also a feature on prostitution in Madrid. It made me realize how I have grown used to the girls standing on the streets. When I go out to Sol and walk back home, I walk past them on Gran Via everytime. The article explained how most are foreigners and are in a state of semi-slavery. Some were sold into prostituion by their families. They have to pay rent and a pimp of some sort as well as a prositituion mafia for protection.

Some Portuguese tried to sneak cocaine into Spain...they froze it in with octopus. How is that for news of the weird.

Living in Madrid, I have learned a few things:

1. If you want your name spelled right, change it to Katarina.
2. People standing on the left side of the escalator are not to be tolerated.
3. Watch the sidewalk when you walk to avoid stepping in dog crap (At first I just thought everyone was having a bad day, looking at the ground all the time).
4. I know how lucky I am to have an oven in my apartment.
5. When I ask someone out for a drink, I know they expect me to pay for it.
6. Staring at a beautiful man on the metro is totally acceptable.
7. Dread-lock mullets happen to good people.
8. When walking towards someone, you don't have to move out of the way until the very last second. They usually won't run into you.
9. Calimocho is yummier than most red wine. Sangria is even better.
10. I am not surprised by tuna pizza. I even enjoyed it once.

José

I have only really met one of my neighbors. His name is either José or Joseph, he never introduced himself. I'm going to go with José since that is a Spanish name. So, José is older and lives by himself. Dawn has these crazy stories about him showing her the pheasants he cooks. The weirdest story she has involves him showing her his new shower. That all said, the only thing he's ever showed me is his nativity scene-he is totally harmless. He always mentions how he lives alone. Anyway, after he showed me his nativity set I thought I'd like to do something for him. He seems like a cool guy and I welcome any Spanish friend.

So, I made a ton of food the other night for John & Vincent's Christmas party. I saved back a few lemon bars and a cookie for my neighbor. Then today I made snow slugs, a Shearrer favorite. Before I left I devised exit strategies with my roommate (I have cookies in the oven!).

José invited me in and took me into his kitchen. This is where I got confused. He took a bottle of maple syrup out of his fridge and showed me how the fridge was a General Electric fridge from the USA. Then he said something about "brujas" (witches) and waved the syrup bottle around for emphasis. Then he let me leave. He was talking a mile a minute with a huge grin on his face. I really have no idea what he said. Before I left he asked me if he had shown me his nativity set and then thanked me for the cookies.

Hey, Feliz Navidad.

A few more things

1. Euros are fun. I gave my wallet away, all I need is a coin purse. There are like 12 different kinds of coins and only a few bills.

2. Madrid is like LA in the sense that everyone has a dog, except Madrid dogs are the most well-trained animals I've ever seen.
They're allowed in every store because they don't go around sniffing everyone and barking. At first I thought my foreign stench was repulsing them, then I realized, they don't take interest in anyone. The down side is, Madrid has no dog parks, so there is crap all over the sidewalks.

3. Everything moves slowly...it's like hakuna matatta over here.

4. I think madrileños are more composed. Americans are always walking fast and talking to someone on the phone loudly, madrileños are always talking softly, or, more likely, not at all.

5. Beautiful men are everywhere, America is ruined for me.

Why life seems slow

An introduction: I am not as depressed as this blog makes me seem, forgive me for this has become my outlet for cultural frustrations.

I tend to be slightly pesimistic in Madrid, with the assumption that if I expect the worst, I'll usually be pleasantly surprised. So far, this attitude has helped me avoid all kinds of despair.
I'm sitting a library at my university, thankful for a silence I haven´t found anywhere else in the city. In front of me is a wonderfully old smelling book on Cervantes. It is one of the recommended books for my class on Cervantes-one of the few published in NYC.
In this library you have to request the book and the librarian hands your handwritten request to some mysterious man or woman in the back who retrieves the book for you. I requested this particular book because it is written in English and I was pretty sure I´d be able to take it home with me.
"Pretty sure" means "I hope" in Spain.
The librarian told me to wait for 15 minutes. I waited for 25, read a chapter of Harry Potter in Spanish and cried as Harry saw his parents for the first time in the mirror. Finally I realized I probably had to go up and ask about the book. The first librarian said something to me that I didn´t understand and moved on to the next patron. In this scenario, I assumed the best and threw a helpless glance to the second librarian.
She consulted the man in the back and brought me my book.
I stumbled in Spanish, asking if I could take the book home with me and then tried to use my public library card instead of my university library card, but eventually I found myself here, seated in a far corner with the book I chose to read on the life of Cervantes. It is a joy in any country to sit down quietly and open a book.
Unfortunately for me, no level of Spanish or English language proficiency will help me read a 183 page bibliography of the works of Cervantes.
God said something about finding joy in our suffering. Tomorrow I'm going to find joy in a biography on Cervantes, but for today I'm just going to read more Harry Potter.

Three things

1. Fall is here. You can't tell by the trees, there aren't that many and the climate is so different here that I doubt they'll change that much. You can tell by the temperature and the air. It's cooler and feels like school should be starting-which it is! I sat through a 2 hour orientation today and I think I understand how to register for classes and where the library is.

2. Drullets. They are everywhere. Mohawk + dreadlocks. Don't worry Mom, I've thought this one through, pretty intensely, and I think I've decided against it. I'll post pictures (of other people) later.

3. Tomorrow I'm going to Granada. It's the super-moorish place down south. I'm not sure what the plan is, but I think I'm leaving early tomorrow morning w/ two of my Erasmus friends (Erika from Italy and Amélie from France) and Anna. Patrick & Anna and I also bought plane tickets to Paris for November two nights ago. And I think I've decided to spend Christmas in the Swiss alps. Or something...