Archive
August 3. 2007
"You have an obsession."
My roommate Paula told me this the other day when I returned home from the store with bags in hand. Admittedly, I do go to the grocery store a lot, so was the case when I was back home living in Bellingham. But here, I live on the same block as a grocery store, and I can walk to a number of other little city stores 5 min, and a walk to a hypermarket as they are called (think big store, more or less what we are accustomed to at home), is only 10 min away. All this makes grocery shopping a very easy thing to do.
I actually find shopping for groceries a very enjoyable experience especially in foreign countries. There’s so much fun stuff to check out, I spend a good amount of time reading the labels, wondering if someday I will ever buy my own leg of Jamon, or if I will ever learn to like the canned baby eels or barnacles. In most stores you can buy delights such as ox tail, pig face, various organs and other curiosities.
As for the shopping, I have a good routine as to what stores I go to for specific items. Not all stores have the same stuff. I was deathly afraid I would not be able to buy Oatmeal, but alas, I have encountered it in a number of places. As for some dried fruit so go in the oatmeal? Thats more of a challenge. They dont really eat dried fruit over here unless its during the Christmas season, when the stores setup tables with every type of dried fruit, nuts, etc imaginable. So for some dried fruit I have to go to a store that is a German chain, there are a few locations in the city. They have some different stuff from Germany and other locations across Europe and they have dried fruit.
My search for molasses was the hardest, no store I went to had it. I asked my friends and they have never even heard of it. A Spanish word exists, but no one has ever heard the word before. It turns out that I dont think this word is even used, but rather they describe molasses as “honey of sugar cane” which is more or less, technically what it is. I finally came across an organic food store and mentioned to them that I was looking for molasses OR Honey of sugar cane, which every they happened to have knowledge of, they vaguely knew what I was talking about. They showed me a wide selection of other types of syrups derived from all sorts of things. None of which was molasses. Then, a person from their second store, which has natural products health products other than food, walks in, we ask her if she knows of molasses. She says she does and they have some in their second store. Well well well! Finally! However the strange part is that their second store stocks the all natural cosmetics, herbs, bath products.. and apparently molasses.
August 5, 2007
This past Saturday marked the start of the annual Fiestas de la Virgen Blanca (Festival of the White Virgin). Things got underway officially on Saturday morning, but things don’t really get going until the afternoon when it would seem every single inhabitant of this city congregates en La Plaza Virgen Blanca. The situation is this, at 6pm a character (mannequin) called Celedon appears in the Torre de San Miguel, the dummy is dressed in a blue shirt of the province of Alava, wears a red necktie and is carrying an umbrella - He then proceeds to descend down a cable over the plaza into an apartment on the opposite corner of the plaza. After a few minutes a guy (human) appears dressed the same with umbrella makes his way to the top of the plaza to address the crowd.
In general the city wide parties/celebration are to honor la Virgen Blanca, but most people who I have asked about the significance of Mr. Celeon don’t seem to have any idea as to his place in the grand scheme of things. In any event, that doesn’t seem to matter to the thousands of people who pack the Plaza.
I have no idea how long people were hanging out there in the sun all day, I arrived around 5pm with Javi. The place was seriously PACKED, to move through the crowds you seriously just had to push people out of the way. EVERYONE had bottles of Champagne.. not to drink at least that’s not the primary purpose. People would just let loose at random and pop the cork and spray bubbly everywhere in any direction and then down whatever was left in the bottle. You could look out over the crowd and see corks flying and spray everywhere.
Here is a quick video you can check out, sorry about the trashy quality!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVSN8Yu_4t8
A second video is also available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo0j8bXYTM8
It was very very hot, a fire truck parked in the center of the plaza and every so often a fireman would pop out and hose everyone down. In all the apartments surrounding the plaza people would gather below the windows and yell “WATER WATER” until someone appeared with a hose or a bucket.
At 6pm Celedon appeared and started floating downward over the crowd. Right about then people started to go crazy, they let loose with whatever champagne they had left. The other distinct ritual is Celedon is passing over the Plaza everyone in the know has a cigar to light up and enjoy as everyone chants out a song sung to Celedon. As quick as it starts, its over and people start streaming out of the plaza to continue the party in other parts of the city. The plaza looked like recycling facility. There were bottles EVERYWHERE, shopping carts totally full. If you wanted to start up a champagne cork collection right about then would have been a good time, as I am sure you could have filled a few garbage bags full.
After all this, Javi his girlfriend and I headed off to the Casco Viejo, which translates literally into “Old Helmet” but really just means the old medieval section of town. We hung out there for a while and we chatted with some friends for a bit. I took off early knowing today would be another full day. Today there was a professional bike race pretty close to town, so I met with Joseba and his family and we drove out to the race and met some of his friends w/ family out there. The race is called Subida a Urkiola. It finishes on top of a hill of Urkiola which sits in the Urkiola mountain range, where there is a national park by the same name, Urkiola. I keep repeating this word because I can’t for the life of me pronounce it. Such is the case with most words in Euskera.
Anyways on top of the hill is a little sanctuary, no one really knows how old it is, but its generally assumed to be quite old (a good bet with most things in Spain). However curiously the exterior looked newish and the interior was most definitely not styled how most religious edifices are. Anyways, I will take their word for it and just assume that some of the monks/missionaries/characters have taken up a passion for innovative interior design. Next to the sanctuary stands a large stone, which is allegedly a meteorite thought to possess special powers. Folklore has it that any girl of marriageable age who walks around the meteor several times will soon find a husband. I hung out next to the rock for a while in an attempt to verify this story or not, but no suitable candidates were doing any walking around the rock, so I decided that it wasn’t my day to get hitched and moved on!
Back with the group we enjoyed the race go by and had a nice picnic, played with the kids, chatted and just relaxed. It was a nice day.
August 6, 2007
I yesterday Juan Pablo told me that my Spanish had improved a lot since I first arrived. This made me quite happy. Granted, I know my Spanish has improved but it’s extremely hard to tell. It’s not easy to sit down and write out a list of what you can say now that you couldn’t a month ago. I think as long as you are still learning and are at a “linguistic disadvantage” it’s hard to tell how much you have improved. But the good news is that I am making progress
Here is a mildly interesting story of a BBC correspondent traveling across America speaking only Spanish. Take a look at their route, I dont think this is a very difficult task. I am confident tons of people travel all over the USA not speaking Englis. I wish the BBC would pay me to do easy stuff. Instead of a route ON the border with Mexico, they should take a route on the Canadian border. I think that would make it a lot more interesting
Here is a nice little song by a Spanish group from Granada. I didn’t realize it until about the 10th time I watched the video but at minute 1:16, the video is from a car going up a street. I LIVED IN THIS VERY STREET - Calle Molinos, 68 - for the record. At the very end of the clip you can see 2 black veiled figures walking down the street those are nuns. There is a convent at the start of the street. The video doesn’t actually go past the building I was in, if we were to have passed the nuns, it would have been just here on the left.
Some more personal news.. I have been experiencing discomfort in a tooth/teeth. I have reason to believe that it’s either the mandible first and/or second molar that is the source of the problem, I think I am going to have to see a dentist over here. Spain is technologically advanced in the arena of dental care, right? I saw some pretty basic/crude dentist offices in Morocco. All the offices there seemed to be more or less open to the public for viewing, I am not sure if this is to inspire confidence in potential patients or what.
August 11, 2007
2 days ago I raced my second race. I am not going to post about it on the front page, rather you can read a full report here in HERE << INSERT LINK TO A BIKE PAGE >>
In other news, The other day I was eating breakfast, one of my roommates Sonja had just used the bathroom and the toiled was running. I went into investigate to try and stop the noise. I remove to the top cover to the cistern part of the toiled. I SLIGHTLY lift up the arm thing with the floating plastic bubble on the end. And then all of a sudden the toilet explodes. I have no idea how it happened. But the entire arm broke off and some valve broke and then there was water everywhere. Water was shooting out of the top of the toilet like a garden hose. I started yelling for my roommates, I was quickly soaked, there was standing water on the floor. Sonja and her boyfriend Rodrigo quickly arrive but neither know what to do. I reach down and start feverously spinning the valve that should turn off the water source. But apparently it was installed for cosmetic purposes only because it didn’t affect the flow of the water in the least. Sonja had to go all the way downstairs to the central control room of the building or something crazy and access a valve down there. By the time the water was shut off, the bathroom was looking more like a wading pool. I don’t know what it is with me and appliances in Spain, you <a href="http://www.scottmclean.net/september.html#sink">may recall</a> that I clogged the sink in my apartment in Granada. It was only fixed when Abdullah found a SINK PLUNGER to unclog the pipes. Amazing. Anyways, we were able to partially reassemble the toilet, but it still wasn’t 100%, so in the end we had to buy new internal parts. Anyways!
The town wide fiestas have finished but things are not back to normal. Its the month of august and people across Spain take time to enjoy the famous month long vacation. In reality, I think very few people take a month off work. A lot of stores are only open in the morning, some are totally closed. My roommate Paula took off yesterday for her vacation time, Sonja is headed out next week.
Despite the frustrations in learning language, I have found it to be somewhat of a gift that doesn’t stop giving so to speak. As I learn more and more, I am better able and more capable to express myself to my friends in ways that I had not been previously been able to. This is a very nice feeling when you are able to communicate to someone what you actually feel where as only a month ago that would not have been possible.
August 14, 2007
Zorionak zuri
'Zorionak zuri is Basque for happy birthday. Yesterday was my birthday. The day was pretty standard (how I like my birthdays to be) but in the afternoon I met up with my friends for some coffee. I had no idea they were going to give me presents. I can’t even describe how thoughtful it was of them, my friends here have been so incredibly nice, helping me out with so much. Anyways, I received a nice shirt, a book about the history of the Basque country, and a coffee mug with a bike and the Basque flag on the side. There is a tradition here in Spain of tugging on the birthday person’s ear for the corresponding age. By the end of the day my ear was pretty tired out! Thank you to everyone else who wished me happy birthday, it means a lot when it comes halfway around the world!
Juan Pablo and I.
Joseba looks suprised.
August 23, 2007
Whats been going on
Not much, I have been lazy, procrastinating when it comes to writing stuff for the website.
The other day I went to the town of Laguardia down in La Rioja. The Rioja is one of Spain’s primary wine producing region. We visited 2 bodegas (wineries). The town its self is quite nice, it’s positioned onto of a hill, the center is completely surrounded by a wall and all the streets are closed off to cars. So its original 13th century design is preserved quite well.
The wine tours were interesting, the first one was in a Bodega in Laguarida. Below the streets of the town are a bunch of wine cellars that are full of barrels of wine. You enter the winery and then descend down some stairs into a naturally temperature controlled cellar. I dont recall the name of the winery that we went to in Laguardia, but it was definitely a smaller operation, the tour was lead by the owner, he was quite enthusiastic about wine and had a lot of pride in his product.
The second winery we visited was the Maqruez de Riscal bodega. Situated outside of Laguardia, this winery is one of the better known producers in Spain apparently. The winery its self is massive, they have a hotel, restaurant, spa, etc on site. The hotel was recently designed by Frank Gehry, the same fellow who designed the EMP back home in Seattle. So as you might expect the design was quite out there.
The actual wine tour its self was very different, in the previous bodega they still crush all the grapes by foot and more or less everything is done by hand. Here at the Marquez de Riscal bodega, the main wine room looked like a central command for NASA - Lots of pipes and big silver vats, everything very very clean and steril looking. All presided over by a central command station with an array of computers and fancy screens that give the real time ph value, temperature, and all sorts of other data.
Then yesterday I went to the town of Burgos. Situated about an hour and a half south of my current location, the town is best known for its massive cathedral. Which indeed is quite massive. The town is positioned on the famed Camino de Santiago, the old pilgrims trail that many of you have heard about. Subsequently, the town throughout history has been an important stopping point for the religious pilgrims who are slowly making their way across Spain to the city of Santiago de Compestela. In other words the town is host to an endless array of religious sites, churches, etc that you could probably spend days exploring. However we only hit up the main sites - The Monastery of Santa Mara la Real de Huelgas and the cathedral. Both were impressive from a historical and architectural standpoint.
I will have photos from both trips up on the website later today.
August 28, 2008
I am starting to look to the future and plan out my remaining time here on the continent. Today I purchased a flight to Austria. I will be flying from Madrid to Vienna on September 19th, and returning on the 26th. Austria looks like an incredible country there is so much interesting stuff in such a small country. Anyways, I dont know any other details of the trip right now. But I will keep you updated. My mother will be arriving here in Spain on October 18th, I need to plan out our trip. After she heads out on October 31th I will be free, no more class. I am currently thinking about where I would like to travel to. Any ideas send them my way! This Saturday there is a medieval market in the old part of town. I dont quite know what happens, but I think everyone shows up dressed up in medieval clothing, people come wielding shields and swords (or I hope so at least!)
August 30, 2007
I think we all can agree that Europe is a pretty dense place when it comes to population. But something else that really strikes me is the linguistic density. The European Union officially recognizes 23 languages: Bulgarian , Czech, Danish, German, Estonian, Greek, English, Spanish, French, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Maltese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Finnish, Swedish.
And then there are tons more distinct languages - not dialects - in Europe. The only thing I can think of even close to being equivalent is the massive amount of Native American languages we have back home, but even this is a poor comparison. Most of those native american languages are not used and are only spoken by a small minority.
I am constantly reminded about the linguistic diversity simply by the food I buy. On the cereal box I have here, the ingredients, nutrition information, etc, most all the text is printed in 4 languages. It was produced by a Spanish company, so it has Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, the company also happens to be located here in the Basque country so Basque is also present. Depending on where the company exports to they will tailor their packaging appropriately. I also have here a package of cookies on which I count 8 languages: Spanish, English, French, Portugese, Italian, Arabic and then 2 languages in Cyrillic script, one presumably being Russian. I could imagine that If you were quite diligent it would be possible to amass a large vocabulary of food related terms just from studying food packaging.
Here in Spain there is really one official language throughout the entire country: Spanish. But a number of the regions lay claim to second languages which enjoy “co-official” status, these being: Basque in the Basque country and parts of Navarra, Catalan in Catalonia, Eastern Aragon and the Balearic Islands and Galician in Galicia. In addition, there are a ton of unofficial languages, however some are better known that others, these being: Astur-Leonese, Aragonese and Aranese. The latter, Aranese, is confined to a singular valley in the Pyranese called Val d'Aran.
In any event, all these languages are Latin derived, that is to say Romance-Languages EXCEPT Basque. Which is somewhat of a linguistic freak show by all accounts. I won’t dive into the history or the relative controversy surrounding its origins, but I will say that I have learned basically nothing in this language even after living here in the Basque country where it has co official status. People who speak the language fluently have told me that it is a crazy language, and that to preserve my sanity it would be best not to try and learn it! I am sure this is an exaggeration, but from what I can tell it is a peculiar language. I have learned how to say: kaixo (hello), aupa! (Hello; in addition -more of an salutary “hey there) agur (goodbye), zorionak zuri (happy birthday), ongi etorri (Welcome) and that’s about it! Out all the Basque country, the area I am in has the sparsest population of Basque speakers. However I am told that just to the north of Vitoria there are some small villages that lie up a little mountain valley, where all the old people there can seriously only speak Basque, they know no Spanish.
My friend Juan Pablo has also told me that he has a number of friends who have troubles speaking Spanish in certain situations, that they translate directly from Basque to Spanish in their heads while taking.. but the problem is, like any language you simply can’t do this for every situation, and invariable something weird will come out of the translation. It has been interesting to see how people identify so sharply with a language. For many of the people here the language is what makes them