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 16th, 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 :)
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