In November, drinking Horchata

Sheesh, is it the weekend already?  Not sure I can handle another one this soon.  The week has been mostly calm and uneventful, but a weekend full of concerts, costume parties, and spontaneous road trips is still dragging on me a bit!

Needless to say, the Vampire Weekend concert was AMAZING.  We unfortunately missed the Jenny & Johnny show, but VW more than made up for that.  The energy of the bass player alone was incredible; I don’t think he could have been more excited to be there.  And I have to hand it to the Spaniards, not only do they know how to do a concert right, but almost every single person in the crowd was singing along to the music.  Maybe we should start using Vampire Weekend to teach our students English.  Also, Spanish hipsters = pure awesomeness.

As I’m sure you fellow Nebraskans can understand, it was a big bummer that I had to miss Jenny’s show.  Even considering she was playing with Johnny, it still would have been great.  So that sucked big time.  Well, you can imagine my delight when we’re leaving the show and I see none other than Jenny Lewis hanging out outside her bus.  I think it goes without saying that I turned into a squealing little girl reminiscent of pre-teen Twilight fans and my giddiness turned up about 15 notches.  Add to that the half-liter of beer and gulps of sangria I drank before the show and we’ve got a bit of a Jessica problem on our hands.  Basically, after dancing around awkwardly behind her while she took some photos with other Americans, I ran up to her and blabbed out a run-on, hard to understand sentence.  She was super sweet though, and when I told her I’m from Nebraska (you know I gotta play that card) she seemed surprised and asked what I was doing here.  A few more things were said (including me telling her that she’s “kind of my idol” bahaha) before I got too nervous/excited and ran off.  Definitely an experience I will remember with horror/ecstasy forever :)   (Jami did I do you proud? Haha)

Anyway though, that obviously made my weekend.  After the show we headed to Fernando’s friend’s house for a costume party, where I put together a super last minute costume made mostly out of what I could find in my closet and the dollar store.  I think it turned out pretty well.  The party was fun, and just like everybody else here Fernando’s friends get a big kick out of me being from Nebraska, so every time I enter a room I would get a big chorus of “Nebraskaaaa!!!!!”  yelled at me.  I wish people did that in the States.

Fernando as Frankenstein's puppet, me as a safari something, a ballerina, fighter pilot, and a Spanish dude.

Beautiful Laura (Fernando's sister) as Wonderwoman and two Spanish flapper friends.  As you can see, Laura stole my animal scarf thing pretty early on.

We wasted our Saturday with sleeping until 2, which is pretty much inevitable when you don’t get home until 6am.  After eating and showering, it was about that time to start planning the night again.  But aha!  Fernando’s sister Laura gets a call asking if we want to go to Valencia for a football (soccer) match, so why not?  We packed a bag, hopped in the car, and headed to Valencia!  We didn’t get there until sometime after midnight, and after being in the car for however many hours and not having eaten for even more, we were staaaaarving.  But of course, in the main city-center area where we were staying, all bars/restaurants had to mandatorily close their kitchens after midnight.  Awesome.  After begging countless places to give us food, a nice owner of a little bar took pity on us and illegally gave us some tasty Italian-Valencian grub.  The rest of the night was mostly uneventful, though we did hear the absolute BEST song mix ever – Bob Marley layered with MGMT.  Sounds strange, but it was unbelievably amazing.

Sunday we toured around Valencia; it’s a BEAUTIFUL city.  Around midday we stopped at a café and drank Horchata, which originated in Valencia, and it was surprisingly yummy and refreshing!  Although we asked around to try and find the café that Vampire Weekend drank Horchata at and inspired the song, we had no luck.  My favorite direction-giver was this lady who was eating some kind of bakery sweet, and during the entire conversation she had meringue all over her face and didn’t seem to care.  Later on we went to a little restaurant that we were told has the best paella in the area, and it definitely did not disappoint.  Everything from the gracious owner to the singing waiter with beautiful hair was perfect.  Then with the men playing guitar and the little girls dancing around, I could have stayed there forever.  Gosh, I love Spain.   :)

mmmmm Paella!

Horchata!

After that all of us were in a food coma, so the obvious thing would be to go take a nap in a park, right? Right.  So we did that, and then started making our way to the stadium for the match.  The match was… so-so.  Our tickets were free, and therefore way up in the boonies where there were hardly any people, so it sort of lacked the excitement of a regular football match.  Also, Valencia is really good, and Getafe, the team from Madrid, is pretty bad, so it wasn’t a very good match anyway.  We ended up leaving after the second goal was scored so we could get back to Madrid at a decent hour.

So, this weekend I came to a few minor (or major) revelations.  The first happened when I met a new American acquaintance this weekend and she asked me where I was from.  When I told her I’m from Nebraska, she responded with “Ha, I’m sorry!” and though I settled with giving her a deathly glare, I so desperately wanted to kick her and say “I’m not.”  She’s from Chicago, how fancy.  I realized that no matter how much we all bitch and complain about Nebraska and how there’s nothing to do, I am so absolutely thankful that I grew up there and was raised amongst some of the nicest and most caring people on the planet.  After being thrown out into the world and seeing the way some people out here treat each other, it makes me miss the eternal warmness and generosity of being from the Midwest.  Also, I think the fact that all my students and Spanish friends/acquaintances love that I’m from Nebraska makes me love it as well. :)

My second revelation came while traveling in Madrid and Valencia this weekend.  I was seeing two of the coolest cities in Spain (maybe 2 out of the top 10? There are a lot of cool cities in Spain…) and I actually found myself missing Ferrol!  I guess this place is home now huh? How crazy.  My friends here are slowly but surely becoming my family and this calm little place is becoming my home.  Well, as long as I’m not homeless anymore.  I suppose I should probably try to get used to the rain then.

Hmmm… other stuff…. Oh yeah! I finally got my puppy fix!  One of the shops we walked by in Valencia had this adorable puppy playing around, so of course we stopped and rubbed its belly for a few minutes.  I also watched a bunch of dogs romping around in the park where we took our nap, it was great.  And I got paid finally! Anybody want to take bets for how long the money lasts? There was also a dude on a segway at the airport in Madrid, and it was absolutely hilarious.  Oh yeah, did you know there’s not a word in Spanish for awkward?  It makes things extremely difficult sometimes.  How could they not have word for it? It’s so essential! Awkward turtle!

Rain season here is starting, so that’s kind of a bummer.  The Galicians sure know how to live in the rain though.  EVERYTHING is waterproofed – from the fitted plastic coverings on strollers right down to the waterproof doggie jackets.  It’s great.  They also have little umbrella stands in every single bar, cafe, store, office, etc, and little plastic baggies that are the exact size of your umbrella.  They've thought of everything!

Welp, I think that’s the end of this blog, I’m sort of all blogged out right now.  Considering the last couple of paragraphs don't really make much sense, it's probably a good idea that I stop.  I’m sure I’m leaving out tons of stuff, but you probably don’t need to know every single detail anyway.  Hope all is well back home, go Skrrrrs!

This week’s soundtrack is pretty much perfect for last weekend:

Ciao!

GAH, Gallego!

Hey Dudes!

It’s been a busy week/weekend (like always, right?) and the infamous Galician weather has finally snuck up behind us.  It rained for about 36 hours straight, and it’s supposed to rain for on and off through Sunday.  I guess it’s a good thing then that I’m going to Madrid for the weekend, huh?  The rain pretty much makes you want to do nothing.  All day, every day.  We virtually sit inside all day, not wanting to go out and get soaked.  Plus, the Galician government is just awesome and hasn’t paid us yet (and refuses to do so until everybody turns in their paperwork – which, considering people are still arriving, is probably not going to happen for awhile) so there’s nothing for us to do anyway.

I made my first Spanish tortilla a few days ago!  It’s been probably two years since I’ve attempted the feat, and it was a success!  It was super yummy, and I can’t wait to explore different variations of it.

Apart from the rain and gloominess, it’s been a pretty good week.  Lots of random but interesting things happened this weekend, and it appeared as if every night was boys’ night out.  It’s so crazy how different the social norms are here.  In the United States, dance clubs/bars are mostly filled with girls in their 20s dancing.  They’re either dancing with a group of girls or occasionally with a brave guy who goes out onto the dance floor and sways back and forth a bit, but mostly just stands there.  Am I right?  Well, it couldn’t be more different here.  The guys here go all out on the dance floor (well, I guess they do in all aspects of life), and a lot of times they exclusively dance with each other.  They’ll dance on platforms just like girls do in the States; it’s almost like the roles here are switched around.  There are even some pretty good dancers!  Shocker!  :P  On Thursday we saw a bunch that resembled the Spanish version of a Guido, and though I tried desperately to describe to my Spanish friend what exactly a guido is, I’m not really sure he got it. It’s a Jersey thing.

Other random stuff about this weekend?   We definitely saw a man helping his small boy pee in the middle of a busy street a couple days ago.  No big deal.  This weekend, we accidently ended up hanging out with the homeless dude who lives in a little nook across the street from our house and annoys the crap out of us.  That was definitely…. interesting.  I’m also pretty sure we saw the tallest man in all of Spain on Friday.  

This week Katharina’s boyfriend Jonas stayed with us, and he told me something really funny that I think you’ll all get a big kick out of.  So apparently when he was learning English in high school in Germany, one of the chapters of his English book was called “Nebraska: The Middle of Nowhere” ahahaha!!!  Ohhh how great!  Typically when I meet people over here, the only thing they know about Nebraska is that it’s cold all the time (to which I have to correct them and tell them how hot and disgusting it is in the summer), and occasionally somebody will know that we grow a little crop called corn.  I just couldn’t believe that out of all the states that they could have picked to do a chapter on, it was Nebraska!  He told me a few things that he remembered from the chapter (which I can’t really remember it anymore) and it was mostly accurate!  :)  Jonas if you’re reading this, leave in the comments what you remember from that chapter!

So I’m pretty sure that people here intentionally speak in Gallego while around us Americans so we can’t understand them. [NOTE: for those who don’t know, Gallego is a language spoken only in Galicia.  It sounds a bit like a mix between Portuguese and Spanish, though it has entirely new vocabulary and stuff like that.  Almost all official documents are written in Gallego, and although we are usually able to translate a bit of the written word, we are lost when they speak it.]  WTF?   Yeah, kind of frustrating.  There have been times when I’ve been around Galicians who know that I am American, and I’ll hear them speaking in Spanish, but when they notice me noticing them, they immediately switch to Gallego.  Little do they know, switching to Gallego is entirely pointless – speaking in Spanish is sufficient enough to avoid the straying ears of us Americans, as we are more than likely not going to put forth the extra effort to try to eavesdrop on their conversations.  It’s just not worth the effort involved.

I’ve got a pretty exciting weekend planned.  Tomorrow I’m heading to Santiago for the night and then I’ll be catching a plane to Madrid on Friday morning for the Vampire Weekend/Jenny & Johnny show that night! Should be a ton of fun.  A couple of friends and I also just bought tickets to the MGMT show in Barcelona on December 16^th, so I’m FINALLY going to get to Barcelona!  Speaking of shows, I heard about the Lumberjack Throwback 90s Dance Party at the Bourbon, and I think that out of all the things that I am missing while being in Spain, that may have been the biggest.  Somebody had better have taken pictures (better yet, video!) and post them on FB!  

Shoot, I've gotta run!  Didn't have time to talk about too much stuff, but I'll get back to it when I get back from Madrid.

This week's soundtrack:

Catchya later folks :)

Thanks everybody :)

Just wanted to say a big fat THANK YOU to the bunches of people who caught the not-so-subtle hint (more like demand) today.  Glad to know you're still out there :)

Love you all.

PS -- can somebody please tell me who is reading my blog from Denmark? I wasn't aware that I knew anybody there, but whoever you are I would very much like to come stay with you!

Janglin' Souls

Alright, so unfortunately I have to start off this week’s blog with a bit of a finger shake at all of you.  I have to say, I’m slightly (okay, more than slightly) disappointed that nobody responded and commented the last week and a half when I asked about Halloween plans and whatever else is going on back home.  I miss you all like crazy, you don’t even know, and all I really want is to know what’s going on in your lives.  That being said, another week with no contact from home (though I have to exclude my wonderful mother and sister and a few others from this) and there will be no more blogs! :P

Okay, now that I’m done throwing my temper tantrum, it’s blog update time.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted (yeah, I’ll admit I was on a bit of a hiatus) so I’m going to have to think for a few minutes about what’s all been happening.  Today was the start of my week, as we had Monday off for Festival and I had Tuesday off for other school reasons, so I had a long weekend (no work on Fridays either) and only a two-day week this week.  What a hard life :)

Oh yeah!  Sort of big news, at least for those who don’t have Facebook – I booked a flight to Paris!  I’ll be there December 2-5, and I’m suuuuper excited (well, duh).  Our French friend, Mathieu, told us that Paris is unbelievably beautiful during Christmastime because the entire city is lit up with Christmas lights, which works out perfectly because we have a really long break in early December and I didn’t know what to do with it!

Sooooo….. Speaking of Christmas.  I hate to be the one to break the news (but right, who else is going to do it) but it looks like I won’t be coming home for Christmas… plane tickets are so expensive, and the stress of flying and having jet-lag is just not worth being home for only two weeks and then having to say goodbye to you all again.  Solution? Everybody come see me in Spain instead! :)

Well, since I don’t get to come back home over Christmas, any ideas for what I should do???  I’m considering spending it on a beach in Majorca, but in reality I realize that that would probably be way too lonely and pathetic, so I’m up for suggestions!  A friend here is going up to Scotland for New Years for a huge festival there, and I’m considering joining her, but other than that I have no ideas!  So if you guys know of any places that are supposed to be really good that time of year, let me know!  

Let’s see… what else has been going on?  Last weekend two of Katharina’s German friends stayed with us and we all went to this little village called Cedeira where we first went to this church called San Andres, where it is rumored that his finger was buried or something, so people go there offering various body parts and ask for him to help heal them.  Weird place.  Also there was some saying about how if you go there once while you’re alive you don’t have to return when you’re dead, whatever that means.  We also saw a little bit of the highest cliffs in either Galicia or Spain (I can’t remember everything) but it was really foggy and rainy so we didn’t get so see much.  A horse just about bit off my hand thinking it was food and then later on there were two wild horses (which are everywhere) that blocked one of our cars for a little bit.  After that we headed into town for the Samhain festival (sort of similar to Halloween), where the whole town groups together at around 9 or so and then walks through the streets in the pitch black.  Sort of hard to explain, and honestly I never really got what the point was, but it was fun and I’ll post some pictures soon. (PS, there’s a link up at the right for a few new photos I took around Ferrol the past week.)

The fountain where all the girls go to splash water of their faces -- it's supposed to make you more beautiful

Pumpkin carving contest at the Samhain festival

The leaders of the Samhain "parade" through the town

(remember to look out for the rest of the pics in a day or two, I'll post a link when I get the chance, but I can't do it right now while I'm at my school)

Other than that it was a pretty calm weekend.  Nobody wanted to dress up with me, so unfortunately I just went as Jessica the American, though I did go all out and wore some of Leslie’s red lipstick, something I haven’t worn since… well, ever.  Monday we had a little potluck dinner thing with all the people in our program who are living in Ferrol, plus a Scottish dude who had been here working in the shipyard the past month.  There are only about 10 of us in Ferrol, but it was definitely nice to get together with everybody over good food, wine, and gin and tonics.

Classes have been good.  Last week I mostly talked about Halloween and showed them pictures of trick or treaters, haunted houses, and zombie walks.  This week I only have 4 classes (as opposed to my usual 12) so there shouldn’t be too much excitement.  In my only class so far this week we just did a classroom activity where I read about after-school jobs for teenagers in the US, and I realized that that doesn’t exist here.  People here don’t get their first jobs until they’re in the twenties, and they typically have the same job for their entire life.  Can you imagine!  That’s insane; I think I would go crazy if I had to do the same thing my whole life.  The economy is even worse here than it is in the States (they are in what they call a “crisis”) and my teacher said that people are worried that these students won’t even be able to find jobs at all when they graduate high school and college (not even the crappy fast-food jobs that people can easily fall back on in the States if they have to), so that is slightly terrifying.

Other than that, my students are constantly entertaining me.  Last week, one of the boys (about 14 or 15 I think) had been imitating Cristiano Ronaldo all week.  If you don’t know who he is, look him up on Wikipedia.  He’s probably one of the most famous people in Spain (and kind of Europe).  But anyway, it was hilarious.  The week before that, one of the kids fell over sideways in his desk on the floor.  The desk fell with him.  Today there was a girl who had apparently looked up “tirar un pedo” in her dictionary and for the rest of the class was repeating “fart” over and over.  So the kids are great.  And I’ve been wanting to think of something to get them from Nebraska (or the States in general) thats cheap and easy to ship over here (ie- a cornhusker sucker) so if any of you have any ideas, let me know!

I think it’s time to head out now, I’ve got to run to my next class, but before I leave I’d like to reiterate my need for home-grown love and stories with juicy details, so PLEASE either leave me a brief comment to let me know you’re still alive or a long message via Facebook or email to help me pass the time during siesta.

Love you all, sorry if I was a bit bitter in this blog.  Oh yeah! And a super thanks to my awesome sister-in-law for sending me a surprise care package with all sorts of winter/water proof gear.  It rained all weekend so I got to put that umbrella to good use!  Bryan, thanks for picking such a super gal to marry :)

Don't forget to check out this week's soundtrack:

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros -- Home

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros -- Janglin'

Cheers!