Just a quick entry here. I'm probably never going to get around to Málaga Part 2, and I should because it's a fantastic story, but for now I want to talk about Córdoba in May.
By the time May rolls around, the weather in Córdoba reaches a trifling 30º C which makes walking to and from work a sweaty ordeal. It's not very fun at all, but with the heat comes lots and lots of blooming flowers! So Córdoba has this tradition of the month long Feria which is divided into four parts, which is more or less one part per week.
First is the Cruces de Mayo, or the May Crosses, which is literally just an excuse for Spaniards to party. All around town their are crosses set up made out of flowers, and around them pop up these mobile bars where people hang out and eat the spring time Spanish delicacy -- snails! Here are some crosses now:
The magic of the mobile Spanish bar still astonishes me. I need to take a picture of one before I leave. They just pop up pretty much anywhere throughout the city and serve beer and appetizers.
Next on the agenda for Córdoba is the wine tasting festival, where vendors from all other southern Spain come to sell their wine! The problem is that for those of us who aren't used to southern Spanish wine it tastes mostly just like rubbing alcohol. Not tasty at all. Still, the Spaniards come out in their finest dress and they dance to and drink and eat Serrano Ham.
For the third week, Córdoba hosts the Concurso de los Patios, where people decorate their patios with a ton of flowers and then open it up for the public to see. And in case you're ever here to see them, do not get in the way of the little old Spanish ladies. They take their patio viewing very seriously, and will shove you out of the way even though you're about a foot taller than they are. They're vicious.
Before I write this next post about Málaga, I need to tell you about my day today. I feel this is indicative of working in Spain.
You arrive at work, having prepared everything you need over the weekend for your normal Monday routine, when your boss tells you that the entire week has changed, and now you need to create an entirely new lesson plan for kids you've never taught before. You don't know if they speak any English at all, but your only instruction is "Find a game where they'll speak English."
...Awesome. I now have 50 minutes to rewrite me entire lesson plan for brand new kids. STRESS. AGH.
So I surf around the web and can't find a single game that's easy enough for kids I've never taught before, so with no time left to search, I walk into my first class of the day, 5A.
I settle on total physical response, where you say "Stand up!" and the kids have to stand up. You do a bunch of silly actions, like sing and dance and cry and laugh, and get the kids moving around and laughing. It ended up working well enough, and then I split the kids up into teams and we played a little competition to see which team remembered the most words.
After that we play a little game called "Can You Repeat?" where you give the kids a topic, like colors, and then the first person says one color, the second person says the first color and their own, and then the third says the first, the second, and then their own color, and so on. Okay, this works out pretty well, so we do animals and colors, and it seems to go pretty well.
I still have 25 minutes left. Dang it. Okay, so I have everyone pull out a piece of paper, and they have to draw either actions or animals and write the English word underneath it. The problem is, I don't know where I'm going with this. I thought, well, maybe we'll play Bingo, but then I realize I don't have a word list. So they're drawing, and I'm trying to think on my feet until I land on the most obvious answer -- Pictionary!
So with 5A all of this goes over very well, and a little while later the teacher came up to me and let me know I did a great job, and that the kids all absolutely loved it. Hurray!
Time for 5B. 5B is a bit rowdier, they argued during the games, I had to take away points, but whatever, if you don't want to follow the rules or pay attention, we don't have to play any games. No big deal. Most of them have a decent amount of fun.
Then comes sixth grade. I could tell pretty much immediately that these kids were at that age where they were too cool to participate, but I mean, come one, when you've got this goofy guy standing up in front of class singing at the top of his lungs and dancing around, how could you not loosen up a little? We play pictionary and Can You Repeat and this other game Chain Words where you have to write words where the next word starts with the last letter of the last word (like elephant -> time -> eat -> toilet), and all of these are quick racing games, so the kids had a great time.
In the end as I was walking out and saying good bye, the kids gave me a standing ovation and shouted thank you, so I suppose that means job well done. Good to know, after 8 months on the job, I can not only think on my feet, but I can be successful at it, too!
For Semana Santa I decided to get out of Córdoba and go check out the coastal city of Málaga! I've been told it doesn't have the best beaches in Spain, but I wanted to check it out since pretty much everyone had been there. I'm glad I did, too, cuz it turned into an awesome day. For a proper introduction as done by some fancy-shmancy Spanish narrator, check out this vid:
I started off the trip bright and early, getting to the train station at 7:30 before the sun was even up. That means, you guessed it, I got to watch the sun rise over the plains of Spain. The plains really are beautiful, they seem like endless green fields of olive trees.
I arrived early in the morning, and the weather was cool, and I knew three things. First, that there was a castle on a hill. Second, that there was a huge cathedral to investigate. And third, there were beaches. Okay, so I've got my plan down. First: The castle.
Now, the Málaga castle, like most Spanish castles, is at the very top of a gigantic hill over looking the city, which you must hike up to the top of if you plan on feeling like you actually achieved something and deserved to be there. (On a side note, Germans think its hilarious when some skinny American is very carefully scaling the pathway in his sandals).
Now, this thing is beautiful. Old, full of history, and full of fountains. The Spanish do love their fountains and they'll put them any place they've got a spot for one. I don't mind, myself, since I do love a good fountain, too. Here are a few!
Now in actuality I pretty much had this entire place to myself for most of the morning. I mean, who else is going to be at this sight at 9 on a Wednesday morning? And let me tell you, having an entire castle all to yourself to wander around in is pretty fantastic, if you ask me. Not to mention you essentially get a complete panoramic view of the entire city from way up on that big hill you just hiked up!
So after spending a few hours there and dining at the cafe at the top of the castle (I had a Bocadillo a la Manchega, or a sandwich with a few slices of tomato, a big hunk of Manchega cheese, and olive oil. It was awesome) I decided to head on over to the Málaga Cathedral. Now, this Cathedral holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons. First, it's the most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen and -- dare I say it? -- I actually prefer it over Notre Dame in Paris. Now it's pretty much impossible to get a picture of the entire thing up close because it's surrounded by buildings, so here's one of the towers....
And here's one from up on top of the castle:
You'll notice I said towers, even though there only seems to be one. Well, apparently when the Malagueño Bishop had the money ear marked for the completion of the second tower, a little country known as America was fighting for its independence from Britain, so the Bishop took the money for the second tower, gave it to the US to help fight our war, and then just basically said "Towers? What do we need two for? We've already got one!" And so, the castle forever remains incomplete. It's pretty cool though, you can see the the spokes for where the tower was supposed to be.
In any case, as I get up to the cathedral I'm greeted by a sign that says "Today is not a tourist day, please do not enter the Cathedral" right in front of two open doors. Well, frankly, this is my only day in Málaga, and the doors are open, and figuring the WORST they could do is throw me out, I go in anyway.
Well it turns out there was some meeting with all the bishops from all over Spain that I just happened to walk in on, but seeing that there were a ton of tourists doing the exact same thing as me anyhow, I decided to wander around for a while.
This cathedral is lovely. No picture I have can do it's interior justice, as it just reaches up for the sky above you. I was so struck by how beautiful it was that it gave me shivers for at least the first thirty minutes I was there. Now, to give you some sort of scope as to how huge this church is, click on this picture here:
So I sat here for a little while, listening to some Spanish Bishop's sermon echo through the cathedral (which was actually really neat) and it was here that it dawned on me: places of worship always have the most beautiful architecture. Gaudy or not (c'mon, some of the Catholic cathedrals are awfully gaudy), they're still really something to behold.
So that was it for the first two sights, next comes the beach and the adventures with the Spanish Parachuter's Brigade!
Wow, I'm actually really shocked that I haven't posted about Semana Santa, which was last month. That really shows you how much I'm paying attention (which isn't very much at all), but with only three weeks left of work, followed by quite a bit of time of traveling, I better update some more so you all know the little adventures I've gone on!
Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is Spain's week long Easter celebration where they parade floats, or tronos, around town. These things are all very old and very heavy. Here's an example of one now!
Each one is covered in flowers and supported by a group of men from each specific trono's church. They're followed around by members of the military and a band, and every so often they stop and some woman wails a song in a thick Spanish accent. The one above is from the city of Málaga, whose adventures I'll recount next, but here's one from Córdoba where I live:
Notice that there are a lot fewer guys holding up the trono. In the previous image you can see there are guys in front, under, and behind the thing, but in Córdoba they only have a group of guys under it. You could tell that it was a lot more difficult to carry the Córdoba ones around with such fewer guys. At one point later in the evening the trono stopped in front of me, and a few guys peaked their heads out from underneath and were, very much out of breath, asking for water. What's even more impressive, is that in Córdoba, even with fewer guys, after every time they take a break, they set themselves up, and before they start walking again they all jump, lifting the trono off the ground and into the air!
But don't worry, Jesus doesn't get all the fun! Mary's also involved in this whole thing, too. Hers was actually one of my favorites:
And here's another, one of Jesus making it's way past the Mezquita:
And of course, we can't forget the outfits that are very reminiscint of a violently racist group in our very own country. Thankfully in Spain it's all very religious and there's no racism attached, obviously, since they did choose these costumes first.
Also in Córdoba, the kids have this tradition of taking a small ball of aluminum foil, sticking it on a stick, and collecting wax from all the people escorting the trono around town, as you can see in this next picture. For a split second I thought about doing this too, but since all the kids participating were under the age of 10, I decided it might seem a little funny. Not to mention then I'd just have a big ball of wax, and how would I explain that to customs? In any case, I snapped a quick pic of two kids collecting some wax. One girl I saw later in the evening had one the size of a grapefruit. Talk about determination!
And, finally, one last trono passing through the Patio de Naranjas right in front of the Mezquita. It's this lovely area right in front of the mosque-cathedral that's filled with orange trees, so since it was early April while all this was going down, all the orange blossoms were in bloom and it smelled absolutely lovely.
So that's about it for Semana Santa. It was a nice week off from school, and even got to travel to Málaga, which I'll talk about in the next entry!
Believe it or not, there are lots of things I'm going to miss about Spain.
Take, for example, my nutty neighbors. My window opens up into the Patio of the apartment building, which means 16 apartments all open up into the same common area. Then there's my neighbors.
The people who live on the first floor below and in front of us are an old married couple. The husband has the voice of an angel who smoked for 20 packs a day since the beginning of time. He coughs, making the oddest noises, that sort of sounds like AAAH WHOOOEEEEEE! He will then shout for his wife, the two of them repeating the same words over and over, but louder each time, since I'm sure neither of them can hear.
Then there's the woman who lives below me and to the left. I'm assuming she's in her early 20s. This woman is undoubedtly the next up and coming Spanish Idol. She'll play ABBA or Britney and then dance around her room singing the words, then picks up her guitar and sings. It's wonderfully amusing in a non-cynical sort of way, I promise.
Then there's the footballers. I think they're all about 16 and they live in the apartment below me with their huge white dog. They, also, smoke at least 20 packs a day clearly in an attempt to achieve the same voice of the man who lives next to them.
A lot of you know that this whole trip hasn't exactly been the most glowingly positive experience of my life. It's been a very long, hard journey, but I'm glad to say that with the past few weeks I've really begun to enjoy Spain.
The other day I had lunch with my boss. Well, lunch isn't really the right word. More like a three hour food extravaganza/walking tour of Córdoba. We sat in the middle of a sea of umbrella covered tables in one of the oldest squares in Córdoba and drank Pepsi's while discussing world politics. We then moved on to one of the most traditional restaurants in Córdoba for a three course meal of salmorejo, bull tail, and flemenquín (it's like deep friend sausage... sort of) while listening to men practice their singing abilities for the Santa Semana processions later that evening. We topped it off with coffee and ice cream at a small café right across the street from some botanical gardens.
It was an awesome day, and with the weather warming up, I'm starting to enjoy my time here.
Some days can be more tiring than others, and today was one of those days. I've been working on a bunch of different projects in school. There's teaching a group of kids a play for theatre we're going to perform in May, then there's constant delegations that come from all over the world to see our school that I have to prepare for, and then of course I've got my regular teaching in the morning in the afternoon. By the time I get home, it's unequivocally time for a siesta.
Apparently -- and I haven't gotten an answer to exactly why quite -- my school is especially important. We had the higher ups of the European Teacher's Union (or something along those lines) come a few weeks ago, and I got to meet a bunch of people from France who said they were very impressed with what we do as conversation auxiliaries and with the school in general.
Then there was last month when the Ministra de la Educación (a.k.a. the Secretary of Education) came to hang out and I got to teach in front of her. I was also put on TV here in Spain on a few different news channels!
But yet another group, from South Africa and South America is coming on Thursday, which means tomorrow I get to spend all day preparing my lesson for the kids for a subject I don't normally do, but hey, maybe I'll be on the news again.
And Spring has finally come around! ...Make that Summer. It's definitely Summer. I know the weather might tell you that it's in the 70s or 80s here, but that's a lie. It's actually, most definitely, in the 90s and for some reason the Spanish still find it appropriate to walk around in pants and sweaters over their collard shirts. I, on the other hand, will be going to work tomorrow in shorts and sandals, most likely making a spectacle of myself (the Spanish don't know what sandals are, and they think its funny whenever someone wears them).
In other news, my speaking skills have indeed gotten better. It's easy to imitate the Andalúz accent, you just drop off the final letter of every word, a lot like French. Just take a look at this example:
Sopató. This is the word that taught me that Spaniards actually speak in code. What they're actually saying is "Sopa para todos," and some how they manage to cut the amount of syllables in half. When my coworker Oscar taught me this, I told him he was a cheater and not actually speaking a real language.
I'm serious. Sometimes it reaches a point where all their saying is exhaled vowel noises.
Fine. I can imitate that. So I played a little experiment on my principal. Every day when I finished I'd walk up to here and ask "Necesitas algo más?" (Do you need anything else?) and a day at a time I'd start removing letters from my speech.
So here I am a front desk receptionist and then all of a sudden BAM I'm being shipped off to Japan to teach tiny Japanese children and maybe they'll teach me a little something about life and living, and it'll all be turned into a sappy Lifetime™ movie. I will eat weird things, see weird things, and meet weird people all for your online enjoyment!
