The Fat Lady Sings

So I mentioned in my post about the Valencia opera, that I had planned on going to one in Madrid, well, that happened. And it was a wonderful day and a fantastic adventure. It was also horribly irresponsible, but so worth it.

So Sunday morning I woke up and did some planning and did some homework. I finished an essay, and booked a ferry, and confirmed places to stay, and all that jazz. Then I showered and went up and let Jess do my hair. It was hilariously shocking to her, and everyone else for that matter, to see me look like a girl. Shrugs  I have a good time. So, hair coiffed, I got dressed and headed out. I stopped at a bakery on the way to the train station, and got a couple of sandwiches for lunch and a snack. I made it to the train on time, and had a fairly uneventful journey.

I got to Madrid and, between street signs and google maps, got to the theatre. Fortunately, it’s in a part of the city that we spent a decent amount of time in at the beginning of the trip, so I didn’t have too many problems. I picked up my tickets from a machine just outside of the lobby, and headed out to find something to eat in the hour I had before I needed to be back at the theatre. I wanted to go to this Thai restaurant I had seen on the way, but they were closed, and so were a lot of other places, (because it was like 4:45, and that is like 3pm on the Spanish meal schedule, nobody is eating anything.) but I finally found a nice Italian café, and had a cup of tea and a mini-pizza. It was very tasty, and good to hold me over until the Opera finished (which wouldn’t be until like 11). So after my little mid-afternoon meal, I headed back to the theatre, and got ready for the Opera at 6.

I walked into the lobby, and… I feel like this blog sometimes gets repetitive. I use the same words and phrases and expressions over and over again to try to communicate these experiences, and as a lit major that bothers, but the truth is that there aren’t words, and I try to use what I have to describe these experiences that aren’t made of words and images and sounds, but of feelings and impressions and emotions. And I am incredibly fortunate to have lived much of the last few months in a state of absolute wonder and awe, and I want to try to communicate that to you, but I know I can’t, and I just keep repeating myself in the attempt.

But walking into the theatre, it was incredible. Like, I loved the theatre in Valencia, it was cool and funky, and interesting, and very modern, but I walked into the Teatro Real (Royal Theatre) in Madrid, and it was perfect. All red velvet and gold and stateliness. I remember when we toured Columbia University a couple years ago, my dad commented that it felt like if there was a God of Education, this is where he would live. Well, if there is a God of Opera, he’d feel right at home in the Teatro Real.

One of my favorite games when I go to the opera, is to try to find people younger than me. Because most of the crowd is older than my parents, and I’m often the youngest person there, but not last Sunday. I saw SEVERAL people who were younger than me. And one of them was reading the program and in a box, and didn’t even look like her parents were making her come. That warms my heart.

But the theatre wasn’t the only difference between my two opera experiences. So in Valencia I saw Simon Boccanegra, an Italian opera by Verdi, while in Madrid they performed Lohengrin, a German opera by Wagner. And when I told my dad that I was going to see Wagner, he was like, “you know that’s intense, right? Like, German intense.” And it was, but it managed to surprise me. Because we have this image of what Wagner sounds like, but I think we forget that he wrote operas, that have to tell a story, and express a whole range of emotions. It can’t all be “Ride of the Valkyries.”

Also, in Valencia there were little personal screens where you could choose your own language for subtitles, and in Madrid they just projected the lyrics in English and Spanish at the top of the stage. And I mean, as wide a range as Wagner has, it was still a German opera compared to an Italian one. Those two languages sound different. And you can’t change that. Also, because of that, the design of the two operas was RADICALLY different. The stage in Madrid was covered in this rough brown-grey stuff, and it looked like they were underground, and the costumes of the chorus could have come from a Soviet Factory Workers Surplus Store. So much grey. While in Valencia there was a black mirrored stage and sumptuous gowns befitting Italian nobles. But the design worked with the productions, and the voices were beautiful in both.

So I’m sitting there in this beautiful theatre, and the orchestra warms up (I really love the sound of an orchestra warming up. I know it’s not polished or professional or the way they normally sound, but I love it. It’s comforting. And there’s this strange, unplanned swell, and buildup, and it gives me chills.) and the overture starts, and it’s… delicate. Light and airy, beautiful and happy and sad, but not angry like I expected. And then the strings kicked in in full force, and I heard that Wagner we always think of, and that was its own kind of magic. And then the opera proper starts.

Now, first, I have a bone to pick with this opera. Because it’s title is Lohengrin (which is inconveniently unpronounceable in any language other than German, and I HATE trying to pronounce German words in Spanish. It’s just a fail.), which is the name of the male lead, so that’s what it is. Except that the entire point of the play is that we cannot know the name of the male lead. And he literally only says it once. I can think of half a dozen better titles off the top of my head. Like, it’s like naming Star Wars “Darth Vader’s kid” or “Leia’s Brother.” Seriously. Also, the play was pretty sexist and definitely had some seeds of nationalism present.

Except I don’t really care about that, because it was beautiful. It was entrancing and wonderful, and I knew what was going to happen, and I was on the edge of my seat. So it’s about this… girl whose brother (the Duke) has gone missing, and there’s a guy trying to take over the dukedom, and the girl is like, “I had a dream that a knight was going to show up,” and everybody else is just kind of, “great, kid, but there’s a succession crisis.” And the guy trying to take over the dukedom (I don’t remember anyone’s names, they were all German) accused the girl of killing her brother to take over the dukedom, and decided that they were going to settle this by combat, and asked the girl to choose a champion to fight for her, and she was just off in lala land, being all “my dream knight.” But since this is an opera, and not Game of Thrones, a knight DOES show up on a boat pulled by a swan. Like a boss. He agrees to fight, but on the condition that no one knows his name or where he comes from. And they all agree. For some reason.

So the knight wins (duh) but spares the other guy’s life, because, literally, the knight shows up dressed in all white, he’s that kind of tenor. Actually, that’s a thing I love about opera. It’s almost a superhero movie. Because it’s one of the only places where there is moral absolutism and battles of good and evil on a grand scale. I mean, you go in, and you know. The tenor is going to get the ingénue, who will be the highest female voice around. The bass is evil, probably in league with the mezzo-soprano, and all the other dudes are baritones. And one of them is usually a reasonable authority figure. And obviously I don’t think people with low voices are evil, nor do I want all my media to subscribe to a pattern like that, or to have that moral simplicity, but I think it’s necessary, and I disagree with those who reject morally simple universes as useless or dull. They’re important. I mean, we love superhero movies, and they’re all about guys running around in brightly colored spandex saving the world. And weak, but incredibly moral guys with names like, “Steve Rogers” and “Peter Parker” become heroes, and those with names easily shortened to “Doc Oc” and everyone who smokes cigars are evil. We keep that morality around, in a back pocket, and we do that for a reason.

So back in the opera, the defeated guy schemes with his mezzo-soprano wife, who also happens to be a witch. And she gets in the good graces of the ingénue, who is about the marry the knight, and begins to sow doubt in her mind about her fiancé, and why he won’t fess up to his name and family tree. So then the knight and the girl go off to get married, and the song they sing at the wedding, which is the Act II finale is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Everybody has tried to get this knight to spill, but he refuses, and tells them that only his bride can make him tell, but he begs her not to, and the chorus is behind her, saying that they don’t care where he came from, because he’s going to save them in the war, and she is singing over them, agonizing over her decision, and then the knight is begging her not to ask, and I almost cried. Like, that’s not what you expect from Wagner, but it’s there, and it’s wonderful.

And then the Act III opener was… the wedding march. I’m not even joking, “Here Comes the Bride” is actually from this opera. That’s right, Wagner. And it has lyrics. In German. And it is NOT played at the actual wedding in the opera, it’s played AFTER the wedding, and is sung by the chorus as they wish the couple happiness (spoiler alert: they don’t get it. Come on. This is Wagner.). So the couple fights, and the girl starts to freak, and demands the knight’s name, and he’s like, “please don’t” but she insists, and worries that he’s going to leave her, and then the guy who was trying to usurp the dukedom shows up and tries to kill the knight, and they all go before the king, and the knight reveals that his name is Lohengrin, and that he is a knight of the Holy Grail, and that when a knight of the Holy Grail goes out into the world he can only do so anonymously, and as soon as he reveals himself, he has to return. Oops. And then the end was really really confusing. Like, I think that the girl’s brother had been the swan that pulled the knight’s boat all along, but had been cursed by the usurpers’ witch wife, and he may or may not have been turned back into a boy, and the girl may have died of grief at losing her husband. But I’m not actually sure. It was pretty, whatever happened.

And despite my confusion, I really loved the opera. It was beautiful and moving and well-done. And to be honest, it was worth the trip just to sit in the theatre and hear the orchestra warm up. But there was also some very interesting theology. For example, trial by combat is not (supposed to be) about who is stronger, it is who God favors. So because the knight won the trial, the girl was declared innocent by God, and the knight also had divine favor. And the only person to question that, is the evil witch. Because even her husband accepts that as absolutely true until she convinces him otherwise. And of course, there’s the anonymitiy of the knights of the Grail, but also the question of how immoral are they allowed to be: like, can they kill someone? (obviously) can they get married? (obviously) Ok, but can they lie? What if it’s to protect someone or something? They’re immortal, how does that work? But yeah, I really really enjoyed the whole thing, and I’m so glad I went.

Which is good, because about 15 minutes after I bought the tickets, I realized that I had a problem. The last train for Valencia leaves around 9. The Opera ended at 10:30. And the first train from Madrid the next morning arrived at 9am, which is the exact same time my class started. So I had to get back to Valencia, and basically my only option was to take a bus, which left at 1am, and arrived at  5:20. So that’s what I did.

But my opera got out early enough that I had time for a meal before my bus left, so I went back to that Thai restaurant (that’s Spain for you: closed at 4:45, but wide open at 11) and had a lovely meal. I’ve missed Thai too. So then I caught a cab to the bus station, and waited around for a bit until my bus was ready to leave. I got on and spent the ride listening to music and texting people. We stopped at the halfway point, and I got a cup of tea and desperately tried to charge my phone in a deserted bus station in the middle of nowhere at 3am, while some random flamenco show played on the TV. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing with my life. But fortunately I charged my phone enough to last me the rest of the trip to Valencia. When we pulled into the station at 5:40am, I caught a taxi (because Valencia at 6am is FAR more deserted than Madrid at midnight) back to my dorm.

And ya know, that part was lovely too. I mean, I was exhausted, and doing that was definitely irresponsible, but Valencia is a beautiful place even in the wee small hours of the morning. The streets are all lit up and golden, even though they’re deserted, and it’s almost unrecognizable. A whole different world. And so, despite being the boring one of our group, I got my experience of sneaking back into the dorm at 6am (though I didn’t know it at the time, there was actually a crazier story than mine that had taken place earlier that day. But that’s a next blog kind of thing.). And I got back to my room and put on my pajamas and went straight to bed. And that was my insanity. And it was wonderful.

So, I realized as I was writing my last blogs, that my 3^rd monthiversary of being here has come and gone, and my neglect of the blog has caused me to miss writing about that, so I’m gonna do it here, because I went to Madrid April 6, and that was the actual day, so it all works out.

So while I was on my opera kick last weekend, I kept thinking about that expression, “it’s not over til the fat lady sings” because it was almost hilariously literal in my case. My weekend of Opera was the weekend of my last full week of classes and with the program. I leave Spain a week from today. My final exam is Wednesday. It’s all ending, after a shockingly short time. Because it feels like I just arrived, like I just got settled, and there’s no way that it could have been the full length of the program, that my clases are wrapping up and my exams looming. But at the same time, I kind of feel like I’ve been here forever. I mean, this is my life now. I don’t even think about eating dinner until 8, and don’t bat an eye about eating at 10pm. I know my way around the city and I don’t even think about the 30 minute walk to class. That’s just how it is.

When you are an American studying  abroad in Europe, everybody warns you about falling in love, either with a person, or with Europe itself. I knew when I came, and I think most people who know me knew too, that me falling in love with Europe was inevitable. And of course, I did. I mean, it’s been a long time coming. I think I wanted to move here before I ever made it to the Continent, but sitting in the Teatro Real between acts of Lohengrin, it really hit me. I’m happy here, and I like the way Europe lives its life much more. I like being in cities that have an opera house, and able to take trains to get anywhere, and buildings older than my country. I’m going to try to take the positivity, the mentality here that has made me so happy back to the US, because I’ve still got things to do there, and I refuse to let myself be miserable, but I also know I’m coming back over here. As soon as I can. I mean, in three months I can’t remember wishing to be back home. I wished that you all were here, so I could show you all the amazing things I am seeing, but I don’t really understand the people in my group who are ready to leave.

And I don’t have to leave Europe for a while yet, but the fat lady has sung, and the tide has turned. It’s no longer about weekend trips and homework and activities, it’s about exams and hostels and ferries and planes, and getting around Europe for 3 months, and meeting my parents in Italy. And now that’s what I’m looking forward to.

And now some photos from the journey:

 Approaching the theatre

 the outside isn't much.

 I continue to disagree with the name of this opera.

 I felt a selfie was in order.

 This is just the lobby

 They also had some old things around the lobby area.

 But the theatre was the main show.

 And of course this doesn't do us justice.

 In the intervals I did some exploring and found some pretty cool rooms as well.

 The royal box was so perfectly situated, and yet COMPLETELY EMPTY and it only had 5 chairs. It made me so sad.

 Like, this is the view from as close to the royal box as I could get.

 I was joking with my dad that this would be a good theatre for the Phantom of the Opera, because it has a nice chandelier.

 That screen above is where the subtitles are.

 All the rows of seats.

 Look, I was even wearing a dress!

5:40, home safe and sound. 

¡Vamos a las Fallas!

Hello everyone. I'm still working on catching up, obviously, but it is also the second month I have been here, and that fits well with this post, so I'm going to be talking about that here too.

When I returned to Valencia Sunday night, one of the first things I heard was the sound of poppers being thrown on the sidewalk, and as I walked out of the train station, I saw the road blocked by a giant mass of people, and what appeared to be a parade. There was lots of loud, spontaneous noise, occasional fireworks, men in dresses, and LOTS AND LOTS of people.

 I was absolutely in shock, and a little bit terrifying. Imagine, for a moment, leaving the town where you live, that you think you know, for a weekend and returning to find that it is right in the middle of its biggest street festival, but you didn't know that when you left. That was last weekend for me.

I mean, the street to get back home was almost totally blocked. I was so confused, and I don't really like loud noises, especially when I don't know that they are coming, and it was just completely overwhelming. And that was my baptism by fire into las Fallas.

What is las Fallas? you might ask. Well, that would be a really excellent question. Fortunately, I've spent all week preparing to answer it, so I now know.

So back some unidentified time ago, carpenters may or may not have thrown out their old lumber into the street and then burnt it on March 19, the feast Day of St. Joseph, patron saint of carpenters. Like I said, that's a theory for the origin, but we're not totally sure. The biggest day of Fallas is the 19th of March though. Point being, a couple hundred years ago, this big holiday that involves statues and burning things on March 19th starts appearing in the written record, and it sort of progressed to today.

So basically here's what Fallas is in modern times: there are a bunch of different neighborhoods/districts in Valencia (and then some of the surrounding towns) and each one has a "casal faller" or a group of people that then gets together every year and plans to build a giant sculpture of... something (often a satirical thing or a political figure) that they will construct in the street on March 15th and 16th. And it takes a whole year to plan this, and then they put it up in 2 days. These giant papier-mâché and wood and styrofoam structures are called fallas. AND THEY ARE HUGE! and they go up right in the middle of the city. And they are all financed by the falleros and falleras (members of that committee from earlier) and so they stay up for a few days and get judged and there's a bunch of street food and fireworks and nobody does any work, and the falleros and ESPECIALLY the falleras wear these GORGEOUS handmade traditional costumes and they are insane and do their hair like this

and the city makes a lot of money, and then, on the last night of Fallas, March 19th, they set the fallas on fire, and they're filled with fireworks, and it's insane. Like, this festival involves so many explosives that it would never be allowed in the US.

Because they also do this thing called the mascletà, but I'll get to that later. Point being, the festival is revving up here, and it's AWESOME.

I mean, once you get over the compete and utter shock of it.

So I finally wade through the sea of people and cross a parade route to get back to my dorm and then I go out to dinner for Taste of America Sunday with Alexz and Elena and a bunch of the other girls. We have some tasty Asian Food, and inadvertently watch some of the children's parade, including a whole Disney-themed section. It was really fun, especially since we literally ran into fireworks at the end of it.

 Which were beautiful and amazing and going off right in the middle of the city.

I swear Spain has no safety regulations.

Then I came home and went to bed.

So then Monday we had Civilization class and talked about Spanish art and history. Then we had cine class and met our new teacher. He is cool. Not quite as insane and funny as the other guy, but he knows his stuff and he seems like a really cool guy. Just one of those people you really want to like.

I then went to Dr. Pennock's class to actually help out for the first time when I was supposed to be there, and I still really like that class. We have interesting discussions and watched another TED talk. A highlight was when we were talking about meals, and I mentioned that I like to eat "leftovers" to three Spanish girls who are usually very articulate in English, and they all did a simultaneous double take. Apparently that word isn't in the curriculum. So I explained what it meant and in turn they taught me the Spanish word, which is always useful.

 Then I came home and chilled and had lunch and then Elena's class, where we learned about Fallas. It is a really interesting festival, and she explained to us all the different parts and events and what happens when. It was nice to get a little overview.

And then I went shopping. Now, shopping is not my favorite pastime even in the US, but in Spain... oh boy. So all I was looking for was a pair of jeans. I only brought two pairs, and they're about all I wear, so they are both wearing out really quickly. You would think that this would not be a complicated task: go out, find jeans, buy them, come home. Well, there were a couple of roadblocks. The first being: I don't really know where to shop. I asked some of the more experienced shoppers, and they directed me to H&M, where I found some jeans that might fit, but seemed a little pricey. Almost 30 euros. SO then I went to a different store, that had almost nothing but skinny jeans, which... I just can't do skinny jeans. My body and my personality are both just not right for them. But I tried some of the less-skinny jeans, and they didn't fit, and then I found it. I found the levis. But they were like 120 euros, and I was like "haha. no." But seriously, the number of jeans I saw in those stores that cost over 75 or over 100 euros was unbelievable. It was terrifying.

So after a good, concentrated hour of searching for and trying on jeans to no avail, I gave up, got a buñuelo (fried pumpkin doughnut covered in sugar. Looks like this:

really tasty, available at a bunch of street vendors all over Valencia right now. I love Fallas.) and went home.

So then Tuesday in lit we talked about the Spanish edad de plata and such, then after class we went to the mascletà, which is... very hard to describe. But here goes. There's this square in Valencia, and every day, starting about two weeks before Fallas proper, they set off... firecrackers? in this square. It's like a fireworks show, but it happens every day at 2pm, so it's not like the color is the main focus. I mean, there is color (though apparently that's new this year), but that's not the point. Because you get right up close to where the firecrackers go off (not too dangerously close, but a couple hundred feet) and you're standing with a whole bunch of people, and then they set them off and it is noise like nothing else, for the first minute or so anyway, because they set off these firecrackers almost continually for about five minutes, and there's something almost musical, because they set them off in a pattern, but after about a minute, you kind of forget the noise, because that is just drowning out everything, and you focus on the way you feel, because you are a couple hundred feet from a massive chain-reaction explosion and you can feel it in your chest and your bones and the ground shakes, and everybody is silent, because you couldn't hear them if you tried to speak, and you just stand there. In Elena's class she was telling us about a woman from Valencia whose favorite part of Fallas was the mascletà, and I totally didn't understand. It's just a bunch of noise and a big crowd, really, not my style, but after going I understood. It should be something I loathe, since it's basically the intersection of large crowds and the loudest noise possible, but I absolutely love the mascletà. It's an incredible, almost transportive or meditative experience. Awe-inspiring.

So afterwards I went back to the dorm, ate lunch, and started on a paper that was due Wednesday. And that's what I did that entire afternoon. Ugh. And then when I was done I just needed to get out, so I went to my cafe and sat at my table in the corner between the window and the door and wrote for fun. I need that after spending concentrated amounts of time writing essays.

Then I came back and we went to dinner and afterwards we went to get ice cream, because it was Mardi Gras, and there hadn't really been much celebration of that. And then we offended the Germans.

So, since learning German, I always get really happy to hear people I don't know speaking German, because I really like German and I don't hear it often. So we're standing at our ice cream place and eating our violet and sky flavored ice cream (except I got berry and coconut, because I'm not that adventurous. And violet ice cream isn't very good. And sky flavor tastes like icing.) So I hear this couple walk up, and they're speaking German and I turn to Alexz, and I say "Deutsch!" in an excited whisper, and Alexz looks at them and lets out this kind of awkward laugh at my excitement at hearing German, but the German people see her, and they come by, and the man imitates Alexz's laugh really aggressively in our direction, and we just stand there shocked for a moment, because I really like German, and Alexz wasn't trying to be mean, and we felt so bad, but it was so funny, and we just laughed. It was awful, and everybody was just staring at us trying to figure out why we were laughing.

So then I went home and went to bed.

Side note, in the original draft of this post I completely skipped Wednesday. Apparently it was so bad that I just blocked it out completely. Except that it wasn't at all. I liked Wednesday. I mean, I did a lot of homework....

ANYWAY.

So Wednesday. I woke up and went to class, where we talked again about las Fallas, and got another history of it. It was really interesting to talk to Juan Miguel, our teacher, who is valenciano, about the experience. He, like many valencianos, tends to go out of the city for fallas, which kind of makes sense. I mean, he's had decades to see this festival, and I totally get not wanting to be in your city when it goes crazy, but he also said, and this is something that my valenciano film teacher agreed with, that he likes it when he has non-valencian visitors during Fallas and he can show them the festival and teach them about it, which I totally get. Experiencing this for the first time is amazing, and I wish that I could share it with all of you. There is so much to see and hear and feel, and that is actually what Juan Miguel said was his favorite part of Fallas, is that it is very... "sensorial" or sensory, I guess. Like, there is so much to see and smell and hear and foods to taste. He also likes that the entire center of town is closed to traffic for a few days.

Another thing he said about Fallas that impressed me a lot, was when we were talking about what happened in the case of rain or bad weather, and, except for the dangerous things, Fallas continues. For example, there's this part of Fallas where all the falleras come to offer flowers to the Virgin Mary and they all walk into the plaza in their full big dresses and such. And apparently it's a mark of pride if you walk in the rain, because it shows how devoted you are to being a fallera. And that's really impressive to me, that this festival is so important that it has to continue despite the weather.

So then in film class we watched some clips from movies and talked about Spanish history and such. It was cool.

Then I went to buy some stamps and a bus pass, and then I went to the mascletà again. I stood even closer this time, and the show seems to get bigger every day, so it was even more incredible. Then I had to go take a test for Elena's class, and then we went to the Fallas museum, which was likewise pretty awesome.

So they have this tradition in Fallas, that in addition to a big full-sized thing that they put in the streets, the falleros also build a little version, like around life-sized to show off to people before the big fallas go up. This is called a ninot. The ninots are burned every year in the base of the fallas they depict, all except one. The public has a chance to vote  and the ninot with the most votes becomes the "ninot indultat" or "pardoned doll" and gets saved, and they put them all in the Fallas museum. And they are SO COOL.

 LOOK! Mary Poppins!

 This one just makes me laugh.

 SO MUCH DETAIL!

 We now interrupt your regularly scheduled ninots to give you an idea of what a fallera's dress looks like.

 Chillin' with my bro

 *sings Indiana Jones theme song overenthusiastically*

 I'm still really impressed

 This is Blasco Ibañez

 and at his head are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is the title of a book he wrote.

Also, the dress in the back is a fallera dress

So then after the museum I went back to my room and wrote a paper for lit class. Writing in Spanish is hard. And then basically I chilled and went to bed.

 The next morning we had lit class again and talked about the Spainsh Civil War and how that affected literature. I have learned so much about the Spanish Civil War. And so afterwards I had my tandem again, but I had a couple hours in between class and my tandem, so I went to a park by the university and read some of the book "The Short History of Spain" because seriously, I need some good context on Spanish history to tie everything together. Because I'm getting a lot of disjointed history. And our lit teacher recommended it.

So then I went to my tandem, and Gloria brought a friend, and we had a great time. We talked about the educational system and accents and it was fun.

Then I came home and chilled for a little bit, and then we went to the mirador de Valencia, which is

That.
It was a lot of fun, there were just a few of us, so we all went up in the same car, and it was a bit scary but once I got over the absolute terror I was really glad I did it.  And we took some silly pictures

 And the view over the city was nice too

I mean, Valencia is just an absolutely beautiful city.

So then afterwards we went down and got some buñuelos and I went back to the University to do this thing called "intergenerational conversations" that the international office was doing. The tagline was "a book, a coffee, and a story" and they got a bunch of older people who spoke Castellano, and Valenciano, and English, and then a bunch of students and we got to choose which group we sat with and we talked about books and such for an hour. It was really fun! I talked to a couple of people about books and publishing and e-readers and got some book recs, and then talked to another woman about opera and everything else. It was a cool way to get out, and a nice way to practice my Spanish.

But as I was walking to the university, as all the Fallas spirit is revving up, and I'd just been on the ferris wheel, and the sun was setting, and I was eating a buñuelo, I just realized how much I love Valencia, and how lucky I am to get to study in such a wonderful, beautiful place. Even having been gone for the last four weekends, I still feel like this is home now. I come back and am relaxed, even if the city has changed so much for Fallas.

And even though the city is different, I'm glad I'm getting to see this side of it. I'm so glad that I am here for Fallas, because once I got over the shock and the loud noises, I realized that I love Fallas too. There's something really beautiful about it. Almost Buddhist in a way. And not just because the mascletà feels like really noisy meditation. Think about it. These people work all year and dedicate their time and money and craftsmanship into building these beautiful structures for people to enjoy and look at, and in some cases, especially in the more satirical floats, to get their feelings out, and then at the end they completely destroy them. These beautifully constructed, much loved things are burned. Every year. Out of a whole year of labor, all that remains are pictures, ashes, and a single ninot. And that's sad, but it's also absolutely remarkable, because they do it again the next year, and they do it because of tradition, and because it is wonderful and it makes them and everybody else happy, and it doesn't have to be permanent.

And so I'm grateful for my two months here so far, and I am grateful to be in Valencia for another month and a half to get to witness the spectacle.

Cositas de la vida española (and some things not so little)

A note: due to technical difficulties, this blog is being published about a day and a half after it was written. So when I talk about “today”, I mean January 6^th, “yesterday” is the 5^th.  And when this is being published I have already come and gone from Toledo, but I’ll post about that later.

So it has officially been a month since I left the US. In the month in Spain I’ve had an experience very similar to what I’ve had during other experiences in my life: I am so busy just living that I kind of forget to be shocked. At first it is all new, and you get sucked into the novelty of it, but then slowly, day by day, it becomes normal, and I’m finding that very true of this experience too.

So today when I realized that the first month was up, I kind of wanted to think about what kind of month it had been, and figured that it might be good for me to do a sort of retrospective-but-not-really blog so that I could really think about the journey as I’m taking it.

And fortunately, the last 24 hours have been pretty resonant with that theme, so it works well. I’ve had a few experiences very recently that make me realize, in a way it is hard to when it is happening to you, just how much I’ve changed and been shaped by this month of adventure. So onto the stories!

So this morning I woke up and ate breakfast, an ensaïmada (looks like this)

A kiwi, some freshly-squeezed orange juice

And a bit of cereal. Then we walked to class.

In class we discussed the history of Spain. I’m getting a lot of that, but it is all coming from different places and fitting together really interestingly. In my culture class, for example, we are studying the history systematically. We start with the Iberian tribes, then the Romans, Moors, Christian Kings, etc. In addition, in this class we talk about the news every day, and our teacher provides random bits of history that help us understand the news. In my Lit class we are starting at the Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Golden age in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and moving forward. We do this study mostly through literature, but we get a lot of historical context. In my film class we start with the start of modern Spain, the Spanish Civil War and Franquismo and are moving on from there.

In between classes I went to the bathroom and there were some girls in there, and, since the bathroom is very small, I sort of waited outside, but then one of them turns to me and says, in perfect, unaccented American English, “Oh, sorry, you go ahead.” I know this seems like a sort of weird story to tell, but this was probably the moment that made me realize how much I’ve gotten used to being in Spain, because I was shocked. I literally could not respond to her. I had an actual, physical reaction at hearing English spoken by an American not in our group. Because in the last month I have talked to our group, and occasionally overheard English, but mostly my interactions with others have been in Spanish, as you would expect, and if the Spaniards try to speak English, it is clearly not their first language. That’s what I’ve gotten used to hearing, and that’s how I expect people to react to me, but this girl responded in English with an ease I don’t hear often anymore. If she had said the same thing in Spanish, I would have been fine, but I’m no longer used to strangers addressing me in English, and I didn’t even realize that until someone did it.

After culture class we had film class, where we talked about the movies we watched and how society changed in the time periods when the last movie we watched and the next movie we’re going to watch were made. We are moving into the mid-70’s here, and the Spanish movies are influenced by the social/cultural movements coming over from the US (by the way, someone explained the EEUU acronym to me. So it’s E for Estados and U for Unidos (literally just United States), but because it is plural they double the letters. It’s just a thing in Spanish, like the Reyes Católicos I’ve mentioned before become abbreviated as RRCC because it is plural. The more you know.) So he made us list all the stuff that was going on in the US in the 60s and 70s, and then got horrified when we didn’t know various people who apparently are very important, but we’ve never heard of. Oops. 

In the middle of class, we somehow wound up in a conversation about the phrase “I’m sorry” and the concept of personal space. This is pretty normal for this class, we often talk about cultural differences, especially since this teacher seems to know American culture and English better than the other professors. But this conversation struck me because it confirmed what I talked about in my post about the Chinese New Year: personal space is not a thing in Spain like it is in the US. Especially in the south, if touch a stranger on the street, you tend to say something, to apologize or at least acknowledge that it was an accident, but here that’s not true. People don’t move out of each other’s ways here like they do in the US, and more people touch more often. Kisses on the cheek are the norm, and especially amongst the elderly women will walk down the street arm in arm with another woman or their husband, and sometimes two men will do the same. It’s just a more tactile culture. Our teacher thinks that it has something to do with Catholocism, and that may well be, but it is certainly a difference in culture.

Then we started watching a part of a film from the era right after the fall of Franco. It was very… ummm….. it was…. sighs, throws up hands filthy. But that was kind of the point since Franco kept such tight control over the country that the frankly shocking content of the film was an act of rebellion and a declaration of a new society. But that made it no less awkward to watch.

And then an old English guy walked into the room. That didn’t make it any better. But despite this hilarious and horrifying entrance, I really liked the guy. He is a professor of English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Valencia, and he runs a program called Tandem, which pairs English-speaking foreign exchange students with Spaniards studying English and gives them an opportunity to meet and talk and get to know each other and help each other with the language. So he talked to us about that, and he was absolutely hilarious. He made fun of the British and Americans and Valencians, and his Spanish was quite good, and he was such a professor. He had the scarf and the tweed and everything.

So after lunch I walked home from class and passed by this guy who sells books on the street. For the past few days I have walked past and saw this beautiful copy of Voltaire’s Candide in Spanish

 

 and just sort of drooled. The day before yesterday, Jess, who usually walks with me, just turns to me and says, “OH BUY IT ALREADY! You know you’re going to!” And so yesterday I did. I made it a whole month without purchasing a book, but I now have one, and I feel better already.

But this is another example of a realization of how much I’ve gotten used to Spain in the last month, when I took out my coins to pay the guy (because there are no bills smaller than 5, and for most things coins are more convenient) I had no problem telling them apart, even though some of them (50 and 20, I’m looking at you!) look really similar, and that’s something I’ve had a problem with. In fact, this was the first time I’ve ever done it instinctively, like I do with American money (which I am going to hate when I go back to the US. Not that I use it there. Everything is on my card there, which is not the case here.)

Then I walked to the stationary shop by the Plaza de la Reina and bought an agenda/calendar because I really need somewhere to write stuff down. That’s another thing: though I don’t go buy stuff often, I have “places” now, in the way that you do when you live somewhere. Like, I have an ice cream place and a crêpe place, and a school supplies place. Navigation is something I do effortlessly now too. I know where the Micalet is and some of the other major landmarks and big streets, and from there I can pretty much find myself anywhere in the center, the Carmen neighborhood, which is where we live.

So then I came home and worked like a maniac. I emailed the English Professor and within my lunch break he had set me up with a Spanish girl, and we had exchanged emails. I ate lunch, where I recognized what all the food was, knew how to order and what everything was called. I also eat a lot more citrus here. I know, it sounds impossible to eat more fruit, but I eat so many mandarinos (clementines I guess in English) that I’m worried about my body stopping working from a lack of vitamin c when I leave Spain. I did homework, I contacted people for WWOOFing this summer, I reorganized my route for travel this summer completely and skyped Dad to make sure that it was doable. I packed for Toledo. By the way, I’m on a train to Toledo.

Sneak peak of the ride to Toledo. Notice the laptop reflected in the window from which I was writing this blog.

I love trains.

So now we move from cositas to the bigger things.  At 4 yesterday I met up in the Plaza de la Virgen with our culture teacher, we call him Einstein amongst ourselves, but his name is Juan Miguel. This part was a tour of medieval Valencia, starting with the Moorish occupation of the Peninsula. We went by this tower that is the only one completely left from the muralla, or city wall that the Muslims built when they ruled Baleynsia and then we saw the door that led to the Muslim quarter when the King of Aragon conquered Valencia in 1237.

This is the painting on top

From there we walked to the Torres de Serranos,

 which was the main entrance to the city when the wall that the Christian kings built was in place. It was so cool, and it gives me a great excuse to do something I’ve been wanting to do for forever but could never quite justify: RANT ABOUT SPANISH HISTORY!!! (I know I’ve done it before, but this is slightly more in-depth).

Warning: the following paragraph contains things that would put my little sister to sleep.

So a long, long time ago on a peninsula several thousand miles away from where most of you are right now, there remained the last vestige of an early Islamic empire and they called this land…this land, (no sorry, I did swear off Firefly references, didn’t I?) No, they called it Al-Ándalus, but then times got tough and the kingdoms broke up and actually Valencia had its own Islamic King, but then El Cid, who is like… he’s…. A mix between George Washington and King Arthur but for Spain. He was this great Spanish warrior in medieval times, and actually the thing that is considered the first example of Spanish Literature is Poema del mio Cid, and it’s about him. He was real, but he’s that level of famous and revered.  There was a movie about him. But then the Muslims took BACK Valencia, and then the Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain, which had been itty bitty things grew a lot and in 1237 King Jaime of Aragon took Valencia and brought it under the crown of Aragon.  But this is where things get interesting. So I’ve mentioned the Reyes Católicos before: Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile and they united the country into now what we know as Spain. Key word: united. Aragon was its own Kingdom and had its own language and culture and economy. Surprise, surprise, this now includes Cataluña, which is now trying to secede from Spain. Despite Isabel and Ferdiand, these kingdoms remained pretty separate, to the point where Ferdinand was not King of Castile after Isabel died. He was regent until the actual ruler came of age, but he had no claim to that throne. So getting back to the point at hand, by the time the King of Aragon built the Torres de Serranos, the Muslims were gone from Spain, but he built them as fortifications against the Castilians. In fact, the flag of Valencia

References this. The red and yellow stripes are the flag of Aragon, and, because Valencia consistently fought for the King of Aragon and repelled Castilian invasion, the King gave them permission to use his crown on their flag, and it is still there to this day. This is also why it is important to note that people here don’t talk about speaking Spanish. Everyone from here speaks Spanish, because they’re from Spain. The language that has spread to South America came from Castile (it was closer to the Atlantic, Aragon was a great kingdom of the Mediterranean.) and so that’s what they speak, but here, I speak Castilian or Castellano as opposed to Valencian or Catalán, which, especially in the region I’m in, is a common language to speak.

Alright, history lesson over, you can tune back in now.   

So we climbed up the Torres de Serranos

 (by the way, that doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s just Towers of Serranos),

 which was so cool. 

A lot of the castles you go to are very beautiful 

(and so is this, 

they wanted to impress people coming into the city),

 but this is a guard tower and it had holes to pour boiling oil down on your enemies.

                                             

And that was cool.

Have some more pictures:

That's Einstein/Juan Miguel in the bottom right, by the way. See why we call him Einstein?

And now some vistas of Valencia:

 That's the Micalet. We climbed that, remember?

 That's the río.

 That's the museum of fine arts

On the way to our next stop I had a fascinating conversation with Einstein about languages in Euorpe and the US (another cosita (which by the way translates to “little thing”, but sounds much cooler in Spanish) is that I have changed the way I think about America. Being in a foreign country makes it easier to remember that people don’t use words the same way uou do, and with that I keep remembering that I while I come from America, so does someone from Chile, and therefore, in both English and Spanish, I have changed from using “America” to using “US”, though English doesn’t have an adjectival form of United States, in Spanish I use that instead.)  But we talked about how German is a really popular language here and a lot of young Spaniards, especially those in engenieering want to speak German, because that’s where the jobs are, and that vice-versa in Germany Spanish has surpassed French as the second most learned foreign language.

Then we arrived at la Lonja,

 which for about the first week and a half I was in Valencia I thought was a church. It’s not. Well, a church to commerce perhaps. So remember how I mentioned that Aragon was a powerful Mediterranean Empire? Probably not if you didn’t read my history rant, but that’s OK. Now you know.

So Valencia was a really important city in this empire, especially for silk production and trade, and it got so powerful that the silk merchants built this massive luxurious place right in the middle of the city to do their business: La Lonja. So first we walked through the patio of oranges, where Valencia’s celebrities used to party

                                 

                                              

And then we went into the main trading floor, 

which was incredible. 

They used the same kind of stone that looks like marble but isn’t in the floor of la Lonja as they used in the floor of the Roman forum in Valencia. 

The columns are made to represent palm trees supporting the sky,

 and the ceiling  was originally painted dark blue with stars to show that this was paradise.

 It also only took 15 years to complete. So that’s as much a show of wealth as anything. Speaking of wealth and power, the silk merchants were so important that these stairs 

lead to a jail where they would put people who cheated or broke contracts. It’s interesting, because there’s also a chapel right below the jail, 

and around the edges of the main trading floor the inscription says that those merchants who have good business practices will not only be wealthy, but will also go to heaven, so it was a very practical sort of place that also is totally tied up in religion.

The final room in La Lonja that we visited was the Consulate of the Sea, 

which was where the most important merchants held court and made decisions. 

It was very impressive. Just look at the ceiling

                                         

I lied. The last room we went to was the basement, where nothing special happened.

 Cool light fixtures

Interesting shadows.

Isn't Valencia pretty?

So then our tour was over and I went back to my room and skyped with mom to tell her about my change of summer plans. By the way, I changed my summer plans. Thought I’d mention it again. When we were talking I mentioned how one thing I found fascinating about my exchange with Gloria, my tandem partner, was that it helped me get an idea of how my Spanish sounds to native speakers, because it’s hard to tell how you sound when the mistakes you are making are more subtle, but this girl and I are both at about the same levels of our foreign language, and so when I read her email, I just had this revelation, that that’s what I sound like to a Spaniard. By the way, the answer to how I sound is “a little awkward, but perfectly intelligible.”

I also couldn’t figure out how to say “foregin exchange student” in English while talking to mom. In Spanish the phrase is different; there’s no literal translation and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the phrase in English, but I haven’t had to use it in English for a while, so… It’s just a part of living in a different language, and it’s not the fist time I’ve had this problem. Writing this blog can be difficult sometimes, because I am having to translate thoughts and names and interactions into a different language, and, even though I know English very well, that can be tough.

Towards the end of the conversation, which took place around 7pm my time, mother, who is ever astute and aware, noticed the time and asked me if I had eaten yet, and I think I laughed, because dinner STARTS at 8, and I almost never eat that early. The idea of having already eaten at 7pm, which was normal for me in the US, is now strange. I was actually kind of worried about making that shift in terms of eating time, but it seems to have worked out.

So then I did homework and chilled and got my stuff ready and went to bed.

I woke up this morning, packed up and cleaned up for my trip to Toledo and headed to class. Today we learned about the play we read and then moved on to Romanticism, which was fun, because I got to pronounce the German that the teacher was hilariously butchering. Apparently the Spanish pronunciation of Göthe (wait, Goethe?) is not as accurate as the English one. Y’all say it Ger-tah, right?

The final cosita of the past 24 hours came this morning in lit class. We were talking about… oh, something, when our teacher brought up the difference between the Spanish and the American philosophies of life. He mentioned that American foreign exchange students always seem amazed at how little the Spanish seem to work and how much free time they have. He chalked this up to the fact that Americans viven para trabajar (live to work) while the Spaniards, especially in southern Spain trabajan para vivir (work to live). For Americans, he suggested, work can become the main part of life, the reason to do things, but in Spain, you work so you can have money to live, that the work is necessary, but incidental to life, not actually the point, and that seems very true to me. Obviously, it’s not everyone’s philosophy, but I know people, even in college, and it was me in high school, who are constantly going from one thing to the next, working and working and trying to get ahead and do everything, but that’s not how it is here. Workaholic isn’t a personality. You work and you study and hopefully enjoy it, but that doesn’t start until 9, 9:30, 10, and when it’s over, the fun really starts.

There’s not much to tell now. After class I came back and got my stuff together and headed to the train station. My train was on time, I got on it safely, and I arrive in Madrid in half an hour and Toledo at 5:23. (Note from future Katie, this was written around 3:15, but due to lack of internet will not be published until at least Madrid, but probably Toledo tonight. Note from a wiser Katie even further in the future: Obviously that didn’t happen. Sorry.)